TAT readers,

As I mentioned in my last essay, I’m in that part of the summer where opportunities to share time with family and friends are more frequent, and a welcome distraction from my normal routines. In other words, thank you for your patience with my less-frequent essays. One of my favorite parts to this time of the year is that those I spend time with, are spread all across this fine nation and in many cases, the world. Spending time with loved ones in their part of the country, also means an opportunity to “take the pulse” of Americans of all types and interests. By the end of the summer, I will have seen the country from top to bottom and east to west. To date, that pulse has been fairly uniform regardless of whether I’m in a so-called “red state” or “blue.” I will give you the next paragraph as an over-simplified overview of what I’m finding.

America is exhausted, humiliated globally and domestically, buckling under the weight of job uncertainty, inflation, diminishing benefits, healthcare costs and even wonders whether or not the American Dream still exists. In many places I’ve traveled so far, there is a sense that America is on some sort of melancholic “autopilot” and therefore directionless. If true it is the type of apathy that can destroy democratic institutions, even those with 250 years of success. There is also that nagging, budding trend of rejecting politics and political parties altogether. This brings new urgency to the now accepted fact, that the American political system is by all measurable standards, on life-support as a functioning constitutional republic.

Right now, we need a citizenry that is courageously willing to see the faults in our political system clearly enough, to implement the common-sense safeguards required to protect all of our rapidly diminishing, constitutionally guaranteed rights. All across America, I hear from people from all political disciplines that clearly see the faults in our system and the answers to fixing those faults. In many ways, we as a nation overthink some of the simplest concepts. For example and as it pertains to this essay, most Americans dislike the idea of big money in politics, that the news is no longer trustworthy, that politicians regularly lie to them, etc., etc., etc. For the record, these issues and those like them are points of interest for both sides of the so-called aisle. Anywhere our nation can find commonality these days, is a good thing.

The most prominent trends I’m finding in my travels, revolve around the issue of affordability. Wherever I travel, Americans are working more hours, extra jobs and shopping more carefully. The sad part of this trend is revealed when chatting with these folks, as that none of them see better days ahead. This may just be my anecdotal reporting but it’s also part of my profession to watch, hear and understand people, or as many would say, “to read them.” America is beginning to be seriously concerned about being able to afford their lives in the future. Another unifying issue between left and right, is that both sides are beginning to see that the real issue for November’s midterms, is that the elite wealth class, is keeping them in servitude and that politicians are merely the facilitators of those shackles. If those in the resistance can keep the right focused on how the billionaire-classes propping up the administration are the ones negatively impacting their lives, allies could be acquired from the right, rather than further entrenching the MAGA crowd against us.

The great irony of our current, hyper-partisan political landscape is that the things that really matter to both sides should unify us, not separate. Jobs, a place to live, security, equality, healthcare, a fair legal system etc., are things we all want and yet, we allow politicians to pit us against each other for their benefit, not ours. Culture wars are merely diversions from other truths that we can all agree on. So long as we allow them to do this, they will continue making deals in congress that they benefit from, not us, the people they work for. The price of this type of accountability, is the education of citizens in how government works, their duty to participate in accurately and well-informed elections, how to hold elected officials accountable etc. All democracy is a team-sport and requires participation. A government, “Of the people, by the people, for the people”, is only as good as those which we advance from the ranks to lead.

From the overview above, there are a couple of issues that I recommend following closely as we careen downhill towards the midterms. First and foremost, inflation cannot improve so long as the Iran War continues. It is really is that simple. So long as the Strait of Hormuz is closed, fuel prices will remain high or grow even higher. All products must be shipped to market. Higher fuel costs equals higher costs for your household. This isn’t rocket science. Even if the Strait opened tomorrow, most fossil fuel experts believe that it would take another year for things to return to pre-war levels. There will be no real relief and especially not before election day. There are no narratives more dangerous to GOP candidates in November, than this economy that is utterly failing working Americans.

Secondly, The Iran War which was lost from the very first hour, is sucking the life out of our economy. All the administration is doing now is enhancing China’s influence in the region. Continuing to act as if we were going to invade Iran or that we can win the war via the air, just makes us more of a laughing stock. An invasion would be in clinical terms, “nuts.” We continue to deplete valuable stockpiles of weapons required to defend Taiwan or take other decisive military action anywhere else in the world. After the lack of planning and execution against Iran and the Houthis, the US military is beginning to be seen as far less intimidating than believed. That perception makes the US and our remaining allies less safe, not more.

So here’s where things stand from my informal polling around the nation. America despises being at war and being lied to about it. Americans are dog-tired of the constant chaos and weary from trying to keep their heads above water. Most Americans are finally getting it through their heads that the so-called real enemy is the one percent, and the political parties that do their bidding. If I may be so bold, I’d also say that the current form of the GOP as a serious party, has peaked. They may exist for a while yet, but their relevance will steadily decline into eventual oblivion. The DNC will be little different if they do not make significant changes going forward. And this brings me to my final point. The pre-Trump, American era we all knew, is gone forever.

As we continue to hurtle towards the midterms, please remember that what came before will never return. If you do keep this thought foremost in your mind, it should trigger the urge within you to restore an America that is safe from the perils we are currently experiencing at the hands of the administration and the GOP. In order to move our nation forward and along the path our founders sought for us, we must rebuild the constitutional guardrails currently being dissembled by the White House. We must install an enforceable set of ethical guidelines for SCOTUS up to and including impeachment. We must restore a mechanism of oversight by congress that agencies cannot refuse to comply with. Sub-human immigration centers are a good example of why oversight by congress is required constitutionally.

We must make congress accountable to the people again. If we don’t, we certainly can’t say that we live in a republic. To make congress accountable, there must be absolute transparency in campaign finance and lobbying industries. There must be enforceable penalties for violating laws regulating these and related industries. Most of all, we must have well and accurately informed citizens that remain civically invested in their own communities. Democracy is not only a team sport, but a sport dependent upon contributions from everyone, just to survive. To thrive, we must all give a little more than we take, whether it’s with our vote, volunteer work, our voice at city council and county public forums, etc. In some small way, everyone of us is a cog in the machinery of American democracy. If that machinery is failing, by default, “we-the-people” are part of the problem. Ironically, this is the best news I’m gleaning from my travels.

Yes, it is good news that both “sides” recognize that our government is broken. It’s the one thing that nearly all Americans can agree on. From this foundation can bloom a new era of American-styled democracy. We can unify over strengthening our weaknesses as a republic. We can unify over transparency, truth, honor and what it truly means to be an American. We may not agree on all of these issues, but the public debate over them is what America was designed for in the first place, a style of government where everyone that wishes to have a say in that government, can.

As much as my travels have been sobering from a geo-political point of view, I believe that I’ve seen with my own eyes, an America that has nearly hit rock bottom. I’ve seen the beginning of the understanding that we have a lot of work to do as we rebuild our republic. We have an entire national security community hollowed out by ignorance, hate and greed. We have an economy dramatically out-of-balance, that supports only the elite wealth classes in a dignified manner. We have an entire citizenry that now believes that the justice system only works for those who can afford it. All of this must be addressed urgently and solutions must be based on our constitution and on facts, not political ideology. Yes my friends, we have our work cutout for us.

Where I find a great deal of optimism is that most of America sees a broken nation that requires their attention. Most understand that all of us are part of the solution if we would just have the courage to try and to expend the energy. This is what gives me hope. Historically, America has never been afraid of hard work, especially when faced by a national crisis. We can and will do this, has been our unspoken mantra for 250 years. What’s important now, is that when the current house of cards falls, that the right voices will be there to lead us back towards a stronger version of our founding ideals.

There is hope on the horizon America. The signs may be faint, but the insanity we’ve lived with throughout the Trump era, is beginning to recede. Reality seems to have once again gained a foothold, even in the reddest of states and counties. I see an America reforming around the better angels of her nature, ready to lick our wounds and to get right back to work putting our nation of ideals, back onto a just and honorable course. Bravo to those who’ve fought the current threat from the very beginning, and to those who’ve just now climbed aboard the resistance train. You’re not just resisting… you are restoring our nation’s true values.

My very warmest regards to all,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is one I’ve been pondering for months. Anyone that has been paying attention during the Trump-era and especially this second term, know full well that our midterm elections, will not be “free and fair” elections. Some of the GOP’s preparations go back more than a decade, and have greatly accelerated since Inauguration Day. They’ve been radically gerrymandering, changing state election laws to disenfranchise minority or opposition voters, firing election workers from your local voting station, removing whole staffs within federal, state and Local governments who are responsible for safeguarding our elections, etc., etc., etc. In short, today’s Republican congressional sycophants to the Trump administration, are denying us the very thing that makes us Americans… the right to vote in free and fair elections.

The point is, no serious voter should be living under the illusion that November’s election will be free and fair. The only question that remains, is what will any of us do about it. Will we take to the streets, mob local congressional offices with angry voters, engage in all manner of civil disobedience etc.? What I am driving at is that we are 110 days until the Midterms and if we are to oppose the intended theft of our votes, we need to start now figuring out what our actions will be when it occurs. As I have been writing since my autopsy of the Democratic Party’s abject failure in 2024, they are worthless, absent from leadership and we must do this ourselves. So, let’s get serious about mapping out our response to a likely “rigged” election in November.

Background essays on the hapless DNC are below:

• Where o where has the DNC gone... - by Paul Cobaugh

• Democracy is dying and the DNC is AWOL - by Paul Cobaugh

I began writing about today’s topic just four days after Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2025 by writing, “An open letter to everyone’s friends and family that voted for Trump... again.” I followed up through February and March of 2025 with a six-part series on the coup underway by the administration, which included recommendations for who the resistance must target. Now, with only a hundred and ten days to go to the midterms, those recommendations are not only still appropriate but now urgently needed. To save everyone a great deal of reading, I’ll cover a few of those highlighted recommendations again today. There will also be some modifications to those previous recommendations.

Okay my friends and fellow patriots, let’s get serious. The short answer to “what will we do” must include civil disobedience on a scale not seen since my youth during the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Between 1960-1970 when I was between 4 and 14 years old, the evening news was dominated by the Vietnam War, massive protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, boycotts and every other form of civil disobedience, up to and including occasional violence that even extended to bombings. The Reverend Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream speech” in Washington D.C. drew hundreds of thousands of marchers and he’d already given different versions of this iconic American speech at huge rallies in many other large cities around the country. By the time that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had passed, the US had begun fighting in Vietnam. Those massive, nationwide protests simply rolled over into anti-war protests.

For the rest of the 1960s and even as far as the early 70s, the war in Vietnam and the protests against it were mainstays on the 6:00 o’clock news with Walter Cronkite. One minute we’d be watching actual combat in Vietnam and a few minutes later, the news about some enormous protest, sit-in, demonstration and even terrorist bombings at US universities. Americans are no stranger to mass protest. In fact, it’s part of who we are as Americans. World War I veterans marched on Washington during the Great Depression to acquire their promised bonuses, only to be ridden down by US cavalry troops led by none other than Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur would go on to become a four-star general during WW II and the Korean War, before being fired by President Truman.

There is a deep chord within American citizens that will not tolerate being talked down to, deprived of our rights and threatened. This is all that we get from the current administration. They refuse to follow the law, even when ordered to by federal judges, which leaves us, “we-the-people” subjected to the same tyranny that sparked our revolution from British rule. We’ve seen multiple of the “No-Kings” rallies in the past which were nice and inspiring, but they went towards no stated goal and worst of all, were not supported by any sustaining narrative. Since the resistance is devoid of a narrative, we must craft one. It could simply be as elementary as, “we demand that the administration and ruling party adhere to the law.” It could also be longer and more detailed but either way, we need one. Fighting the daily outrages are necessary to some extent but the only thing that wins, is an overarching narrative with supporting narratives that express our grievances simply and elegantly. The best delivery method for such narratives is in person supported by thousands of patriots who believe as we do.

When I talk about massive civil displays of our anger, I’m not talking about once a month or more, I’m talking about millions of Americans in the streets every weekend until after election day. Where these protests occur is equally important to the numbers. As I have been saying for over a year, take these massive protests right to the home offices of Republican senators and representatives, and drag the local media with you. Every elected Republican official is vulnerable and collectively, they are the weakest link. This makes them an ideal target for large-scale protests. Their editors may be cowed by threats from the administration, but they cannot ignore thousands of local citizens in the streets.

Look guys, most mainstream US media these days has the spine of a garden slug. If we don’t force them to do their jobs, they won’t. The only way to get their attention is to “get in good trouble,” as recommended by the late congressman and civil rights icon, John Lewis. Here’s the deal and there’s no way around it, every sitting Republican in congress is terrified of the midterms. Our mission is to ensure that they will fear the wrath of the people.

The GOP did this to themselves. At every turn during the Trump era, they’ve had a chance to follow the law and support their constituents. At every opportunity they’ve chosen poorly in order to not rile the madness of their dear leader in the Oval Office. Our government has not been this unhinged from the law and the constitution its based upon, since the outset of the Civil War. Unless we are loud and insistent with our demands of them, they will refuse to put our needs over their fear of Trump. It really is this simple.

Many Americans still refuse to believe that this administration, supported by the entire Republican presence in congress, will attempt to “rig” the midterms. I find their disbelief incredulous since the administration has been breaking the law and violating our constitution from the very first hour of this maximalist-corrupt, second Trump term. Some of the nation’s best analysts have been following the administration’s plans to steal our midterms now for months. Todd Blanche, acting AG, Pete Hegseth at DoD, Markwayne Mullin at DHS, and countless other administration officials have sat in front of congressional hearings and refused to commit to not putting troops and DHS law enforcement at our polling sites. We’ve seen this movie before, especially with the Supreme Court. They say what they need to in order to be confirmed as cabinet members by the US Senate and then… turn around and fail to keep their pledges. There is no honor among thieves.

For those curious as to “how” the midterms will not be “free and fair,” please see the links below.

• Are President Trump and His Allies Laying the Groundwork To Undermine Our Elections? | Campaign Legal Center

• Trump moves to tighten federal control of elections ahead of midterms

• The Campaign to Undermine the Midterms | Brennan Center for Justice

• How the Trump administration is trying to reshape how elections are run PBS News

• Trump accused of trying to ‘rig’ elections after firing federal commissioners | Donald Trump | The Guardian

• 8 Things to Know About Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” Midterm Elections — ProPublica

• Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections — ProPublica
  
  

  

Then there’s that voter suppression bill called the Save Act, that both Trump and his congressional cronies are pushing hard. Every single Republican that I have read about or heard speak in a video, has lied outrageously about this voter suppression bill. It’s simply a solution looking for a problem. In other words, we have no issue with non-American voters. There is not one shred of evidence to support the need for this additional costly addition to laws that have been on the books, since 1996.

"Congress is moving the SAVE Act suite of bills, which would disenfranchise millions of eligible Americans from registering to vote. This time, they’ve added provisions that would also make it harder to cast one’s ballot. Here is what you need to know. 

A renewed push for the SAVE Act 
For the last several months, online supporters of the SAVE Act have partnered with President Trump, Representative Chip Roy (R-TX-21), Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), and even Elon Musk to promote the legislation through social media platforms. The focus has been on spreading mis- and disinformation about voting in our country, largely around non-citizen voting. 

Claims that non-citizens participate in federal elections are wildly overdramatized and false. In fact, it is already illegal for non-citizens to register to vote AND cast a ballot in state and federal elections across the country. In 2016, the Brennan Center for Justice found that across 42 jurisdictions with high immigrant populations, there were only 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast (.0001%). An audit of Georgia voter rolls found that out of 8.2 million registered voters, there were only 9 instances where a noncitizen cast a ballot. Claims that noncitizen voting is a true threat capitalize on racism and fear to promote certain politicians' agendas."

- The SAVE Act is Headed to the Senate: A Push to Restrict Voting Access
- League of Women Voters
- February 23, 2026

Summary

As you can see, there is no “if” the Republicans will attempt to steal our election. There is no DNC, no Congress, no SCOTUS and no other guardrails to protect our most important constitutional rights. We are the cavalry and so we must act like it. The best targets for our outrage are every single GOP elected official, whether local or at the national level. After well over a decade of Trumpism, anyone still supporting the GOP, are complicit in the destruction of our republic. It’s truly that simple. Everyone that cares about American democracy and our children and grandchildren’s future, now has no choice but to be loud and dogged in their pursuit of justice. I realize for those trapped in neighborhoods, small towns and rural regions of the country, have a tough row to hoe due to peer pressure. Urban folks are much the same at the neighborhood level. We must face our fears and take to the streets. I protest best from my keyboard but will take any opportunity to join in the throngs of patriots that do take to the streets.

As for what we are shaming Republican officials for, there are plenty of options but if we narrow the list down a bit, the campaign becomes more cohesive. For example, most honest Americans regardless of political preference, wants; justice for the Epstein victims regardless of who is involved, justice for the January 6th insurrection, an enforceable code of ethics for our deviant SCOTUS, restoration of every dollar stolen from us, the tax payers, to vote out every sitting Republican in congress, an overturned Citizens United, and last but not least, an impeached president and to investigate and prosecute Trump, his family and his oligarchs without exception, for violations of US law in their business dealings. As we all well know… this list could be pages longer if necessary, but I’m certain that you get the point.

In many respects, this essay isn’t just about what to do after the election has been stolen, but what we must do here and now. A little over a hundred days to operate, isn’t very much time, considering how much pressure we must put on the administration, SCOTUS, Congress and even the DNC. Work together to form a plan, get some great walking or running shoes and let’s hit the pavement. It’s the only way to hold onto what millions of Americans have fought to protect. This is our country, not Trump’s, his oligarchs, his spineless GOP and their voters, who put us into this mess in the first place. It’s too late to save the GOP voters but we can save the republic. That’s a pretty darn good trade in my book.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul

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p.s. Over the next week or two, I’ll be spending as much time with loved ones as possible. It’s that time of year for visiting with family and dear friends. I will try and push out an essay or so. I look at this partial break as a time to recharge my batteries for the last few months of this election. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in our streets fighting for our liberty.

TAT readers,

Well my friends, today’s essay will anger many and on both sides of the aisle. Antisemitism is now pervasive in the US and rapidly increasing globally, largely due to Israel’s defensive war in Gaza. Not only is most mainstream media responsible for the threatening uptick, but Americans especially should be deeply ashamed. The left is always bashing the right and legitimately so for their addiction to conspiracy theories but in the case of Israel, those on the left are every bit as guilty. Personally, I’ve had enough and today I will say so bluntly. There are several components to and causes of the disgraceful behavior we are witnessing by Americans who proclaim to love Israel, but are cheerleading this cruel, millennia-old bigotry like it’s their favorite sports team.

"The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills."

- Dunning-Kruger Effect
- Psychology Today
- By Devon Frye
- April 24th, 2026

Both Dems and Republicans are guilty and make for a perfect example, of the the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which simply states that those with no or limited education and experience, believe themselves to be experts on complex topics. The ongoing situation in the Middle East currently revolving around Israel and Iran, is but the latest episode in the age-old waves of virulent antisemitism. These self-proclaimed experts believe that Israel is “genocidal,” an occupier, a cruel task-master for the Arab populations that have been redefined in my lifetime, as Palestinians. Oh how perfectly ignorant these haters are. Today, I seek to dispel much of the steer manure emanating from the mouths of these ill-informed and dangerous propagandists. This issue is not one-sided and while that Israel has a role in the casualties of innocents, the truth is quite far from what they are being accused of.

Before I continue, I want to make something stridently clear; I want peace and security for both Israel and the Palestinians who have been exhaustively abused, tortured and murdered by Hamas, Hizbollah and other violent extremist armies doing the bidding of Iran, Russia and to some extent China. As I wrote in an early essay of a 26 part series on the war in Gaza, there is plenty of blame to go around. As the name of this publication clearly indicates, I will tell you the truth about this dangerous trend, without bias. It’s up to readers to make up their own mind. I do this because the mainstream media has been lying to all of us since October 7th, 2023. Between those swallowing their lies whole, and global media oligarchs funding and disseminating the propaganda, thousands more will die on all sides of this equation. Anyone mouthing these lies, will share some of the blame for future victims.

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First the basics

There are countless arguments for and against Israel’s right to the tiny bit of land they hold in their historical homeland. For roughly 2,000 years, Jews around the world were excluded from governing their own nation. Both Jews and Arabs have lived on the land, for far longer than that. Most history books will put Jewish existence on what today is called Israel, at around 4,000 years. The Jewish calendar, goes back 5,786 years. Islam appeared in around 510 C.E., and Christianity of course at 2026 years ago. All three, plus many other religions, have lived in the historical state ever since. All have a right to live in what today is known as the “Jewish State,” but like every other country on earth, they must abide by the laws of the country.

During the post WW I occupation of the region by Britain, every single inhabitant, regardless of religion or ethnicity, had the word, “Palestinian” written across their official ID papers. This should put the matter of name to rest. Yes, there are ancient historical name issues as well, but they have little to no relevance to what everyone likes to argue about today. To simplify, mostly Jews and Arabs have lived there from a time predating any of the religions we recognize today. Both the original Arabs and Jews are considered “Semitic,” simply because both languages come from a specific group of languages. Both Islam and Judaism are comprised of several ethnicities, and not all Arabs are Muslim anymore than all Israelis are Jewish.

Today, most people in the region practice some form of Judaism, Islam or Christianity, although several other religions call the region home too. Within Israel, all are free to practice their own religion, while that in many of the other regional Arab states, there are limitations, some official and some biased-based. Our modern conflicts began sometime after the beginning of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century. For those babbling propagandists spewing the word Zionism like they had just bitten into a rotten apple, the word simply refers to the holy mountain in Jerusalem where the Al-Aqsa Mosque now stands. Zionism is simply about Jews going home with the intent of establishing a Jewish state in their original homeland.

There has never been a time when Jews have not lived in what today is Israel. This vision was realized in 1948, when the UN saw fit after the Holocaust, to designate part of then British Palestine, as the new state of Israel. As you can see from the map at the time of Partition below, Israel was only about 10 miles wide between the sea and Jordan next door. An indefensible strip of land that with modern weaponry would be of no value for defense against the perpetual attacks by Israel’s neighbors, beginning from the very first minutes of Israel’s 1948 statehood. For the record, the US administration under Harry S. Truman, played a major role in the success of the UN vote. This would become the beginning of the special relationship we have with Israel, although there have been several rough spots in that relationship.

The background provided is barely a thumbnail sketch of the complicated history of the region and its people, but is enough to better understand what follows about antisemitism.

Israel is not committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

There are several ways to approach this topic but I will only focus on those I feel most critical to this essay. For a “spoiler alert,” the genocide claim is patently false by any standard. There are varying interpretations to the term genocide, depending on which International Law is being discussed. I will use the UN version here for the sake of discussion. Genocide is discussed in Article II of the UN Convention on Genocide. Even in the UN version, sometimes framed as a bit more ambiguous than other international standards, clearly states that there must be “intent” to the actions enumerated in the quote below. To believe Israel has intent to commit the five named crimes below, is to suspend belief in reality. No facts support the claim of willful “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

"The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. The latter is less common but still possible. The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.

The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:

- A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

- Killing members of the group
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

- Genocide
- United Nations, Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

The reasons that I can say with full confidence that Israel has no intent to destroy the Palestinian people is that as of 2022, 21.1 percent of Israeli residents are Palestinians. Also, there are still over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. The accusation fails with even a cursory look.

Arabs represent one-fifth of Israel’s population. Systemic discrimination, outbreaks of communal violence, and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict continue to strain their ties with Israel’s Jewish majority.

- Arabs comprise just over 20 percent of Israel’s population. The vast majority are citizens, while those in Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its capital, are considered “permanent residents.”

- Arab citizens have the same legal rights as Jewish Israelis, but they tend to live in poorer cities, have less formal education, and face other challenges that some experts attribute to structural discrimination.

- Arab political parties have long struggled to gain representation in Israel’s government, and many Arabs have expressed alarm at the leadership of right-wing Jewish politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

- What to Know About the Arab Citizens of Israel
- Council on Foreign Relations
- October 26, 2023 

As you can see on the map below, the overwhelming majority of Arab citizens, live in the north of Israel and not in the West Bank and Gaza, where there is a constant hotbed of terrorism of violence by Islamic violent extremists, against their own people. This is not to say that there are not problems though. Arab Israelis often live in poorer cities and have less education. There has long been a serious debate about whether this is attributed to systemic bias, much like we have against minorities here in the US. An additional problem is that many Israelis, often far-right American Jews move to the settlements in the West Bank and behave as badly as American far-right violent extremist groups like, neo-Nazis, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, 3%ers etc. There is regular violence against the Arabs living adjacent to these far-right settlements and the inhabitants suffer greatly from the extreme, right-wing violence.

At the beginning of the October 7th war, there were roughly 2.1 million Arabs living in Gaza. Despite the war beginning in October of 2023, Gaza’s population grew in 2024, according to CIA analysis. We never saw the scenes we have witnessed where there is actual massive starvation such as in parts of Africa, showing tens of thousands of Gazans dead from starvation, as mainstream news would have us believe. I’m not saying that life is good for those in Gaza because it’s not. Their life is hell, but the crocodile tears from the media, often without the slightest credible source, was and continues to be overtly dishonest. This is why it is called propaganda.

Now let’s get down to the sorting the whole casualty claims by the known propagandists at the Hamas Health Ministry and numbers being published by the UN. First and foremost, I was well-trained and by some of the very best intelligence analysts regarding the insidious propaganda wing of Hamas, of which the Health Ministry is a part. They have their own production company, actors, equipment etc., as if they were a Hollywood studio. Much of what is trafficked on social media platforms, is derived directly from Hamas’ propaganda dissemination networks. Yet Americans, oblivious to propaganda and how it works, share adversarial propaganda like it was some sort of award they won playing on the local softball team.

As for the casualty numbers themselves, most military estimates from a variety of global sources put the strength of Hamas in Gaza between 20,000 and 95,000 prior to the war. The 20,000 is low based on the amount of support offered by Iran and other variables. I believe the 95 is also ridiculous. By extrapolating from multiple sources, I would conservatively put the number closer to 45,000. At last check, the number reported for total Palestinian, non-combatant casualties in Gaza around 67,000. This number as we all now know, does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. As for IDF and US intelligence estimates, I am hesitant to believe either considering that October 7th was a massive intelligence failure, not dissimilar from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941.

At any rate, the numbers game could be argued in a variety of different ways and we may never know the truth with any certainty. None of the casualty figures account for the deaths of Palestinian non-combatants at the hands of Hamas as human shields, summary executions, failure to allow families to leave north Gaza for protected areas etc., etc. Israel operates with an even higher standard regarding warning prior to attacks, than the US. They have even gone so far as to text individual innocents, call them, employ radio and all other means to clear target areas of civilians. When innocent Palestinians remain anyway, it’s most often because Hamas combatants will not let them.

In new reporting, there are an alleged 40,000 fighters again in Gaza, after nearly three years of war. Again, few statistics from this war are verifiable with any accuracy. Still, the world blames Israel for all of the casualties. Terrorism doesn’t end. It just evolves and there are other mostly Sunni Muslim VEOs (violent extremist organizations) also in Gaza and supportive of Hamas. Hamas and their supporters never disarmed as required by the faux peace deal. They will not stop attacking Israel or their own people.

The UN and other NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) are complicit in the casualty chaos as well and when challenged, a May of 2024 report shows, they had to revise the number of women and children killed by half. This is not the only problem with the UN in Gaza. Hamas, like most terrorist organizations use what are called, “protected sites” like schools, hospitals, Mosques etc. for military operations. Many of the several hundred kilometers of Hamas’ tunnel system in Gaza, had outlets inside of these alleged protected spaces. In many cases, UN workers knew that they were working right above operational tunnels for Hamas operatives. They said nothing. A new report now shows that Israel had complained to humanitarian NGOs operating in Gaza, that they were using the falsely high casualty numbers to boost fundraising, ignoring the antisemitism in their bid for donations.

Then there is the Hamas playbook that intentionally creates “collateral damage” or CIVCAS (civilian casualties) for the purpose of propaganda.

The IDF, Israeli Defense Force, has been observed first-hand in their operations in Gaza, by John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. I agree with John that what we see in Gaza is not genocide and again, because there is no intent by Israel to annihilate all Gazan Palestinians, or even a significant percentage. I also agree with him that in war, there will be individuals or maybe even a small unit or so that is guilty of war crimes. I have no doubt that this also occurred on some level in Gaza. This is an accurate assessment that I can easily get behind, having spent a year in Baghdad during the second worst year of the two-decade war. Urban combat comes with extraordinary risks for civilians and combatants alike. Bad things happen. Sometimes, horrible things happen. Both the US and Israeli forces hold their troops accountable for when, “horrible things happen.” These bad things normally occur in the heat of battle and without premeditation. Soldiers carry the weight of these painful events for the rest of their lives. Of course, there are bad apples too.

To be clear, I am making no excuses for those who committed war crimes. I am simply saying that as horrible as such activities are, they are still a tiny minority of the casualties. Ironically, mainstream media has ignored the Israeli casualties from almost the beginning of the war. The only real respite was when there were hostage releases, but those headlines shared the front page with ignorant and unsupported accusations of genocide against the IDF. Media coverage hasn’t only been poor, but has been in my opinion, overtly antisemitic due to pro-Palestinian and Hamas favoritism. I scarcely have words for most of these alleged news sources. Ask yourself… how often do we read or watch news that treats Hamas as badly as the IDF? Apparently our mainstream news moguls are pro-Hamas.

In years past, when people would ask me about good news sources, I would generally recommend the AP, Reuters and the BBC. After reading Reuters and the BBC’s decidedly anti-Israeli coverage of the war in Gaza, I will never read either again. In fact, from my special edition on the war in Gaza, with the 26 essays, five were detailed looks at the acutely dishonest reporting. I have posted them below for those with deeper interest. Any honest person will be horrified at how our favorite news sources sold-out Israel and still does. That dishonest coverage with their sensational claims of mass civilian casualties based on propaganda sources, was in my opinion the basis for the worldwide wave of antisemitism generating additional threats for Israel and Jews, globally.

• Has all media, good and bad, forgotten how to report with facts and context?

• “If it bleeds, it leads” - by Paul Cobaugh

• I derive no satisfaction from this, "I told you so."

• Mainstream news outlets are borderline antisemitic in their reporting about the war in Gaza.

• Are Journalism ethics really a thing? - by Paul Cobaugh

And the threats to the innocents in Israel and Gaza, have now materialized into not only antisemitism, but Islamophobia, already a threat to Muslims within western nations. At the height of the war, all mainstream media used blaring headlines with the casualty figures from the Hamas Health Ministry and the parts of a complicit UN to sell their reporting. Never mind that the figures were false and never drew a distinction between fighters and non-combatants. In the US, Islamophobia once again spiked alongside of antisemitism, inciting violence against Muslims while concurrently, generating the highest spike in antisemitism in decades.

Miss and disinformation about the war, dangerously impacts both Jews and Muslims. What the hell is wrong with the leadership of the 6 media entities that control nearly all media in some manner or other? How disgusting that they are willing to risk death and destruction of innocents just to increase their bottom lines?

The so-called big six multi-media conglomerates, control most of what we all see, read, hear or watch. As we can see in Gaza, Ukraine and other violent conflicts around the world, these media companies are profiting at the expense of human lives.

As we look at these six media monsters one must ask themselves, why are these thuggish corporations so antisemitic or are they simply selling Jewish and Muslim lives for profit? There are even better questions for all of us if we are to ever have peace in the region or for that matter… in any region. On both sides of the wars in the Middle East, innocent human beings are dying and suffering immensely, and all based on lies and conspiracy theories that continue to stir the pot of violence. The bottom line in Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, Iran and the rest, is that if we do not dispense with these massive terrorist armies built, trained and equipped by villainous nation-states like Iran, Russia and China, no one will be safe… ever.

As for the antisemitism, both the US right and left now have disgraceful agendas for Israel. The right, now based on Christian Nationalism instead of Christianity, only loves Israel for their own apocalyptic purposes, not because they love Jews. The left, often called “bleeding heart” liberals, are in such a hurry to help everyone and everything that they have allowed themselves to be swayed by propaganda, not common-sense and facts. Their now deep commitment to calling Israel genocidal in order to demonstrate their good intentions, are now tacitly supporting Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran. Both sides have missed the point. Employing antisemitism based on lies is little different from behaving as Hamas, who has a decades-long commitment to actual genocide against the Jewish state.

No long-term good comes from decisions based on lies. The only way to solve problems is to put all of the facts on the table and then seek a solution. Any alleged solution based on lies, is a ticking time bomb, that will take innocent lives wantonly and randomly. War is truly hell and it is always the non-combatants in a combat zone that pay the heaviest price. How about we stop acting like social warriors for good if in fact, our intended solutions are all based on falsehoods? Truth is hard and most human beings wish to be the “nice person.” We must all learn that being nice requires honesty. Being “nice” is killing innocent Israelis and Palestinians.

War is hell and as cold as this sounds, when wars occur, we are faced with one of the lowest rungs on the ladder of humanity. I am grateful that most never see or experience it. There is no “war-lite” to assuage the sensitivities of those who have not experienced it. Decisions must be made and there is a cost to every single one. Israel has been under attack or threat, every day since her statehood. A thousand or more rockets from terrorists a year land on Israeli soil. Children are taught things that no child should experience. This is part of daily life for all Israelis. Going to war with Hamas in Gaza was their only option to defend herself and her citizens. Now, all of the armchair quarterbacks are criticizing those painful decisions. Sure, with Bibi and his far-right coalition leading Israel, some of those decisions don’t meet my standards, but I’m not in his shoes. He won’t escape this war untouched and prison may be waiting for him. Time will tell.

As for Israel, unfortunately, her Jewish residents have a sad few thousand years of dealing with genocidal antisemitism based on lies. She will survive but at what cost? I will stand up for her and her people, Jewish, Muslim, Christian or any of the other religions calling her home.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul

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TAT readers,

First and foremost, my very best for your Fourth of July weekend. On a personal note and as I noted in my May 29th essay, I will not be celebrating the 250th birthday this weekend. America under the Trump and Republican regime, is not America. I will though, do as I and my family have always done, celebrate our founding values with gratitude for the courage of our founders, the sacrifice of those who have perished in defense of our republic, and the effort of the resistance to restore what is constitutionally ours. You see, America is not like other nations, as that our constitutional republic is built on ideals, not monarchies, oligarchies, corruption and lawless authoritarian rule. I will not be alone.

I’m writing this by letting my mind wander to memories, who we are as Americans and general musings about how much I am grateful to be part of the resistance to tyranny. You and the patriots that have come before, inspire me.

This morning, I am just back from visiting with my oldest and my daughter-in-law, who have both been teaching in an international school system for going on two decades now, I found it joyful and refreshing from the political turmoil I have been writing about for nearly four years now. Family is something I hold dear to my heart and I’m sure you do as well. This prompted a thought this morning as I dug through the news I had ignored while laughing, eating and savoring the kids.

As my mind drifted back to joyful family fourth of July celebrations full of great family, food, music and of course the requisite water fights with cousins, I recalled my late parents renewing their wedding vows on their Valentine’s Day, fiftieth anniversary, 24 years ago. From the warmth of those beautiful memories, I seized upon an idea. As the idea formed in my mind, I thought that it’s one that others opposed to the GOP regime in Washington may enjoy or consider as well. How about instead of focusing on the fake patriotism on display on the national mall, all honest Americans that still revel in our nation’s true ideals, renew our vows to our brilliant constitution that defines us as Americans and to each other. There is nothing partisan about this. It’s simply a celebration of “who we are as a nation” and who we will be again, post this administration.

As I look back over my youth, I realize that in many ways, I grew up in a world that the iconic artist of Americana, Norman Rockwell could have painted. Those paintings captured an America that now seems ancient history, but I believe still lives in many American hearts. Many call my dedication to our national ideals, Pollyannish, but I choose to believe that I am little different from most Americans, except maybe this crop of Trump-era Republicans. As long-time readers have read before, my mom was a lifelong Republican and Dad the opposite. I learned at home that well-informed Americans discuss ideas, framed by our constitutional values and make political decisions based on reality, not the short-term whims of political parties. Both crossed party line when necessary and often voted the same way. This is why I believe that renewing our relationship with what America was designed to stand for, could be a unifying factor in these perilous, hyper partisan times.

Our founders, especially George Washington as our only independent president abhorred political parties, often called factions in the colonial era. In his Farewell Address and other of his writings, he consistently warned against factions as one of the most severe threats to our nascent republic. He was right then and in one notable passage, it’s as if he actually prophesized a Trump-like president and a party like the Trump-era, MAGA GOP. Please see this in the quote below.

"However combinations or associations of the above description (factions) may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

- Washington's Farewell Address
- President George Washington
- September 19th, 1996

He like our other founders were men of principles based more on the Scottish Enlightenment, than the commonly but erroneously assumed Christian or other religious values, and those principles were forged into our constitution. It’s not that there wasn’t some overlap, but our founders were deeply spiritual men and recognized, “inalienable human rights” as the key to our new republic, not specific religious values. In fact, many of our founders related to Deism as much as the churches they attended. The separation of church and state and the absence of any reference in our constitution to political parties, should tell those with a bit of common-sense, that America was for everyone, not a select few. If our republic is to survive, we need to get back to basics.

We’ve sadly departed from two and a half centuries of the philosophical high of our founding principles, into beliefs now more focused on celebrity, wealth and materialism, but especially so in the Trump era. To be truly American, requires us to ignore the six, far-right justices, sitting on our SCOTUS bench. That they consider themselves as “Originalists” is absurd and offensive to those who read history. For example, if one reads history, they would find this administration’s overt preference for Christian Nationalism, would have offended our founders greatly, especially the primary writers of our Declaration of Independence, Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

"While judicial originalists continue to trumpet the importance of history, they rarely take that history on its own terms. They claim to be wedded to the Constitution’s eighteenth-century meaning, yet they fail to engage in the deeper work of reconstructing the often-unfamiliar understandings of constitutionalism on which that original meaning was based. Justice Gorsuch insisted in Rahimi that originalism was the only thing that could keep judges on the straight and narrow, “seeking to honor the supreme law the people have ordained rather than substituting our will for theirs.”8 Yet in foisting modern constitutional assumptions on an eighteenth-century past that did not share them, jurists like Gorsuch ignore the supreme law those earlier people in fact made. These originalist jurists end up rewriting the constitutional past based on the logic of the legal present. In that respect, their interpretive approach resembles the living constitutionalism they otherwise disparage. A better understanding of early American constitutionalism might not be able to solve all the constitutional problems of today, but it can expose how faithless today’s Supreme Court originalists too often are to the history they claim is the lodestar of our law."

- Why is the Supreme Court Obsessed with Originalism?
- Yale University Press
- Jonathan Gienapp
- October 21, 2024

To make matters even worse, we must not tolerate this administration’s violations of our constitution and especially their full-frontal assault on our Bill of Rights. What the administration doesn’t fight in court, like last week’s challenge to the Fourteenth Amendment about Birthright Citizenship, they simply ignore, even when federal courts order them to obey them. To any sane person, four SCOTUS justices voting against the Fourteenth Amendment last week is the judicial version of a very rude hand gesture directed at our founders. This isn’t “originalism,” it’s Sedition. Unsurprisingly, four far-right justices named Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and with Kavanaugh producing a mealy-mouthed concurrence but with areas of dissent, represent today’s GOP.

"Following the Civil War, Congress submitted to the states three amendments as part of its Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. A major provision of the 14th Amendment was to grant citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” thereby granting citizenship to formerly enslaved people.

Another equally important provision was the statement that “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The right to due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the federal and state governments."

- 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)
- The National Archives

Everything we true patriots celebrate this weekend, is based on our constitution and the mostly honorable manner in which most Supreme Courts have historically honored our foundational document. If we cannot support our founder’s deep scholarship and brilliant democratic innovation, we are unworthy of the title, “American.” This is why I refuse to celebrate the laughable America 250 fiasco on the national mall. The administration is apparently having trouble selling a milestone holiday celebration of an America that they don’t believe in, and are attempting to replace with lawless autocracy and oligarchy.

"This spectacle on the National Mall in Washington, DC, part of Trump’s Trump-centric celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, is like watching your high school bully host a party that no one attends. It’s a daily humiliation for a wildly unpopular president who coopted what should be a unifying national celebration and turned it into repellent schlock."

- Trump's Great American State Fair is a fabulous flop
- USA Today
- Rex Huppke
- July 1, 2026

I don’t know exactly what Republican crowds are celebrating, but it sure as hell isn’t the America most of us grew up believing in. I know for sure that in my family of professional educators and public servants, we know the difference. I bet anyone reading this essay does too. This year especially, we will all celebrate with gratitude, that we do know who we are as Americans. Those Republicans still supporting this version of the GOP, clearly are clueless. Another part of true American identity that I will celebrate this weekend, is that America is DEI. A nation of immigrants, could hardly be anything but DEI. That today’s Republicans fight DEI and all religions besides White Christian Nationalism, is one of their most demonstrable acts against the constitution, and those who’ve shed their life-blood securing and sustaining it. All my life has been about DEI, even though it really just means what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “all men are created equal.”

Almost last on this short list of the America I am grateful for and will celebrate vigorously this weekend, is that most of us still have our First Amendment Rights to free speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and separation of church and state. We are losing ground rapidly though on all fronts. Government workers and gov contractors risk losing their jobs due to having their social media and internal communications monitored for any real or inferred criticism of this administration, Americans are arrested in our streets and their homes, for legally exercising their constitutional right to free speech and freedom to assemble, our mainstream press, like CBS, ABC etc., are too cowardly to exercise their right to freedom of the press, while the Republican Party, including our SCOTUS, continues to whittle away the wall between church and state.

My eternal gratitude is for those willing and able to exercise these constitutionally guaranteed rights within the resistance. I personally will not bend on these rights and will continue to speak loudly and clearly in support of them, just as all of you are.

Well my fellow citizens, I’ve meandered a bit but I am certain that by now, you get the point (s). Our constitution defines who we are as Americans and those who attempt to deny or restrict our rights, are not American patriots. In fact, they are the precise opposite. They you will find running amok with their little red hats, and quoting propagandists like FOX News, who I personally consider a foreign agent. Rupert Murdoch and his clan have sold out America from the very beginning and employed the tactics I know from my career in influence, to brainwash the GOP into their fake patriotism and cruel behavior towards the rest of us.

Finally, the one thing I am most grateful for is that the spirit of our constitutional republic, lives on and is on fire in all of you. America is a nation of principles and citizens like you, that fiercely defend those principles against all challengers. It is not a monarchy or any other term from our political science classes that allows leaders and their governments to oppress, “we the people.” We are the only thing that stands in opposition to tyranny and every single day, I see all of you fighting the good fight. Things may seem daunting but the tide is turning and it’s all of you that have made that happen. American patriots have yet to fail in defense of liberty. We won’t fail this time either. This is what terrifies every Republican still supporting this administration. Trump MAGA types in our neighborhoods are quieter. Trolls are fewer and lower courts are pushing back with extraordinary courage. The real power though, is in you and the true America we celebrate this weekend.

True American spirit is what has terrified our adversaries since the first World War. That spirit precedes us on the battlefield and in our generosity. The world doesn’t despise Americans, it despises this administration. We see this as foreign World Cup fans flood our nation and fall in love with Americans. Remember, we are a nation of people and laws, not tyrants and oligarchs. When this is all over, both fascists and oligarchs will rue the day they attempted to take our freedom and rob us of our constitutional birthrights. That day is coming sooner than they think and we won’t rest until it does.

This Fourth of July, will be me renewing my vows to America. I hope you’ll join me. Remember to celebrate yourselves for fighting to sustain the freedom we’ve celebrated for 250 years. You are what makes America great.

Viva Libertad

Paul

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TAT readers,

I don’t know exactly why, but this week I’m more frustrated and downright angry with this outlaw administration and Republican Party than usual. As most of you know, I despise political parties on principle, although I vote like most independents, for the best choice, based exclusively on the behavior of candidates and parties. I have not voted for a Republican since President Bush senior’s first run for the White House. I believe he came to the Oval Office, exceptionally well-qualified for the presidency. He led the effort to remove Iraq from Kuwait during the first Gulf War, with a mastery of foreign affairs not seen since. Bush Sr. led the free-world through that crisis as well as our beloved JFK managed the Cuban Missile Crisis while that I was in elementary school.

“A government of laws, and not of men”
― John Adams

Today’s Republican Party is intolerant of experience, integrity, honor and intelligence, preferring culture wars, corruption and I dare say treason, to honoring our constitution. Selling out US national security to our most dangerous adversaries while destroying alliances with tried and true allies, is by definition, aiding and abetting the enemy or simply put, treasonous. Because of them, we are no longer a “nation of laws, not men.” Without law, there is no America and we damn sure better do something about it while that we still can. While the GOP is dismantling our national security community, they are concurrently abusing so many of our laws, that I’ve lost count.

DOJ refuses to obey or enforce the law and our current SCOTUS, backs them regularly. To make matters even worse for us, “we the people” are being harassed, assaulted and arrested unjustly all the while the GOP protects our oppressors from the local level, all the way through our Supreme Court. They refuse to even investigate the murder of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who all of America watched being murdered by DHS officers, for simply exercising their constitutional rights. This violates that other iconic American founding value that states, “we are all equal before the law.” The entire administration violates multiple of our constitutional rights daily and aggressively. A perfect example of this can be seen in all DHS immigration activities where they abuse our First Amendment Rights so egregiously, that they are better titled, the DFC, The Department of Fascism and Corruption.

"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."

Thomas Jefferson

Let’s look at a couple of examples from the Bill of Rights. For the record, our founders, particularly Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and James Madison, long considered the “father of our constitution,” were explicit in expecting our laws to be understandable by ordinary citizens. Jefferson went so far as to say that not only are laws required to be straightforward but added that making them too complex would allow lawyers and courts to interpret them in convoluted manners that could justify anything and everything.

What triggered my deep frustration today, is that the entire nation watches this administration, the Republican Party and their oligarchs, daily break the law, violate our most precious constitutional rights, and all while the DOJ applauds and supports their crime wave. A large percentage of this crime involves the enrichment of the Trump White House and family. The stock trading by members of congress and the grotesque looting of our treasury via massive markups in contracting, passing bills that reward corruption and the insane self-serving lawsuits used to coerce businesses and individuals into paying extortion fees to our mobster POTUS and his billionaire buddies.

A particularly painful wound for the American people is that the administration is denying us the rights and privileges carefully laid out in the constitution, our Bill of Rights and amendments to the constitution. Below are a couple of examples.

"The First Amendment provides several rights protections: to express ideas through speech and the press, to assemble or gather with a group to protest or for other reasons, and to ask the government to fix problems. It also protects the right to religious beliefs and practices. It prevents the government from creating or favoring a religion."

- The National Archives

Daily we witness aggressive violations of our First Amendment rights via a wide variety of administration actions. Jailing protestors during ICE raids violates violates two parts of the First Amendment, the right to free speech and right to assemble. Our free speech rights are being denied via censorship, coercion of networks to be “more White House friendly.” Stephen Colbert’s firing and the attempt to do the same to Jimmy Kimmel were stunningly audacious. Much of our personal and business digital media is being “moderated” by soulless tech companies that huge corporations hire to censor negative press about them.

Administration threats to deploy ICE, the Army and other federal law enforcement agencies at the polls for the midterms, is another assault on our free speech. Their intent is to discourage Americans from expressing ourselves at the polls, especially certain elements of US society like, minorities. In fact, all voter suppression laws and actions, are a violation of our free speech rights. Republicans in particular, have legislated countless such laws nationally over the past decade or so. As a Texan, I’m well aware of how drastically Republicans suppress voters, especially in non-white, poor and immigrant communities. If there was a gold medal for voter suppression, Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Republican Party would have it.

Now Trump and the GOP are attempting to blow up our voting rights again, in blatantly unconstitutional ways such as, meddling with mail-in votes, placing armed forces at the polls and demanding voter data from the states and more. The Constitution is quite clear, that states, not the federal government run their elections. The GOP’s record speaks for itself, that neither laws or the constitution our laws are based upon, are not impediments to their lawlessness.

It’s not just our freedom of speech being violated either. Freedom of the press is drying up faster than a puddle in the desert.

"Since returning to the White House in 2025, President Trump has extended the war on the press he launched while running for his first presidential term. He has censored government data, attempted to dismantle US public broadcasters, weaponized independent government agencies to punish media that criticize his actions, halted aid funding for media freedom internationally, sued disfavored outlets, and applied pressure to install cronies to lead others. Press freedom in the United States continues to decline as a result of these actions."

- RSF/ Reporters without Borders

Another of our Bill of Rights abuses by the Trump administration, is their violations of the Fourth Amendment.

Fourth Amendment

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

- Constitution Annotated
- Congress.gov

One egregious example of Fourth Amendment violations are the warrantless searches conducted by DHS, ICE, CBP and other Executive Branch law enforcement. When the Bill of Rights was ratified as the first ten amendments to out constitution, American’s memories of British occupation which included constant intrusions into their private homes and lives without warrants, was still fresh in their minds. It’s in our DNA to jealously guard our privacy and the sanctity of our homes from government intrusion. The administration has triggered our anger pointedly, by stealing so much of our personal data via DOGE and other associated efforts. What the administration doesn’t steal, they buy from enormous data owners like, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Both the government and big data owners know so much about everyone of us who are not living off-the-grid. They know what we like, what we say digitally, where we are and a million other things, just from data-harvesting… often illegally. Like everything else, data can be helpful in our lives and conversely, extremely detrimental. This is why oversight and legal restraints about the collection, use, analysis and sharing of our personal information are critical to maintaining our privacy. The worst offenders in the data wars are often marketers who abuse our data to try and influence us to buy their products and services. This administration is demolishing rules, policies and laws governing the use of our data.

"On the day of his second inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order standing up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). On the Administration’s telling, the Elon Musk-led DOGE was created to address (broadly unsubstantiated) claims of fraud, waste, and abuse of government resources. But since its inception, DOGE personnel have unlawfully forced their way into sensitive databases across the federal government, including at agencies that provide critical services and handle vast stores of sensitive data. This includes the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Education, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and many others."

- EPIC’s Fight Against the Administration’s Privacy Abuses
- Electronic Privacy Information Center

Although the Bill of Rights is about our personal and collective civil rights, the administration and the Republican-led congress are additionally targeting the body of the constitution itself. Our losing war with Iran, which continues to prove that there is no ceasefire, is a flagrant violation of the constitution. Only congress can declare war and the recent GOP insanity about the War Powers Resolution, is proof-positive of their willful intention to break the law. Just this week on Tuesday, the GOP-led Senate finally developed a little bit of a backbone and passed a War Powers Resolution, limiting Trump’s power to wage war, only for Trump to storm into a meeting with Republican Senators on Wednesday, convincing them to reverse their votes and vacate the resolution. I have no idea how Republican congressmen can get around without any hint of a spine.

I’ve done a few hours of reading just to be able to pare down this essay to a manageable size. I was already familiar with much of the material, but the sheer quantity of material regarding both our laws and Republican violations is staggering. It’s safe to say that this administration and congress wake up every single day, with plans to violate the law and the constitution it’s based on. When this era of American history is written, just the corruption alone will fill a whole series of books.

Summary

As I close out this essay, I want to reinforce and expand on a couple of topics covered. First, I want to express that it is our constitution that makes us Americans. It’s not only law, but the basis for all American laws outside of the constitution. In nearly two and a half centuries, that most extraordinary document has held our nation together, through thick and thin. It has been amended over the years, precisely as our founders intended and now includes twenty-seven amendments. One of those amendments I did not mention in the body of the essay, the Fourteenth which grants birthright citizenship, is being challenged. At this point, I have little faith in our SCOTUS, which has a track record of supporting the Trump administration’s attempts to rewrite the interpretation of our constitution, so that it serves an all-powerful Executive Branch and elite wealth exclusively.

Our founding documents, especially the constitution, detail what it means to be an American and how our government is intended to work. The epic dishonesty of right-wing SCOTUS justices, calling themselves “originalists” offends me to the core. They are hellbent on altering our founder’s intentions in order to support oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and a wannabe king. Mitch McConnell, the architect of this court will be known in all future history books, as the man who sold-out our constitution. Without Mitch, this administration most likely would have never occurred. Chief Justice John Robert’s so-called “immunity” ruling and Citizens United decision were the nuclear weapons modern Republicans used against all the rest of us.

Finally, our Bill of Rights defines us as Americans. We grew up believing in the permanence of those inalienable human rights. It was our personal armor to protect ourselves from the predators of democracy. I don’t just read those rights, all my life I’ve defended them and done my very best to embody them. I don’t believe that I am alone either. Even today, I believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans also embody those rights. In my youth, rank and file Republicans and Democrats didn’t have culture wars about our rights, even though not all Americans benefitted from them equally. This is no longer true. These days, I am stunned by Republican congressmen who during hearings don’t even know their basic constitution or are intentionally lying about what it says. Regardless of political persuasion, we must all come together and stop the selloff of our republic. Those who still support this administration and version of the Republican Party, will not. We outnumber them two to one. We can do this, but it will take all of us.

I’ve done a good bit of soul-searching to understand why I am so frustrated and angry with Republicans for the past decade. The revelations from all that soul-searching have come into sharp focus these past few weeks. It has to do with identity and this may apply to many of you as well. I believe that the reason that those of us who are so furious with today’s Republicans and oligarchs, is because we see being American as a key part of our identity. Not that fake Americanism of today’s GOP but the version based on the freedoms expressed in the Bill of Rights. Those rights are key parts of our identity. When the critical elements of our identity are repeatedly assaulted, it forces us to evaluate our own survival. Being forced by outside events to ponder your own survival often prompts that fight, flight or freeze response we’re all familiar with. Apathetic voters or those afraid to speak up are in a “freeze response” while that the rest of us are in “fight” mode. The one response I don’t see anywhere in the resistance, is “flight.” That’s about the most American thing ever!

Cheers for the rest of your weekend,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today I will dig back into my CT/ Counterterrorism background in order to warn everyone about one of the myriad of well-planned threats to our midterm elections. Yesterday’s sentencing of nine men in Texas on terrorism charges based on the false premise that Antifa is a terrorist organization, should terrify any American, regardless of party. If the administration gets away with this, any of us standing against the unconstitutional and illegal actions of this un-American and overtly corrupt administration, run the risk of being falsely accused of terrorism.

"A group of Texas protesters convicted of terrorism charges received unusually harsh sentences of at least 50 years in prison on Tuesday in a closely watched case that was widely seen as a test case of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on dissent."

- Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison
- The Guardian
- Sam Levine
- June 23, 2026

In the Guardian article quoted above, there is plenty of detail as to what did and did not occur however, this case is far from transparent. Of course the North Texas region where the trial occurred, is a hotbed of far-right Republicans, willing to embrace and act on the administration’s dog whistles to racism, white supremacy and unconstitutional activities. Then again, as Texan, this is to be expected from the only political party to run Texas for over thirty years, yet continues to blame the other side, for the miserable degradation of all things government services and the near nationally high property taxes that define our once proud state. Texans have lived under draconian, far-right and unconstitutional leadership since I moved here for the Army, in 2005.

"What is evident across this county — where in the 1970s the oilmen-rancher TV drama “Dallas” was filmed — is that extremism has gone mainstream in certain pockets of America. Hard-line sentiments that would have been whispered only years ago are now spoken unabashed. That worries Alonzo Tutson, a Black Independent, who said right-wing radicals here are everyday people who say “howdy to you at soccer practice. They just blend right in.”

Texas was home to three dozen of the 377 alleged insurrectionists arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, tied with Pennsylvania for the most of any state, according to a study by terrorism experts at the University of Chicago. Of Texans charged, 20 live in half a dozen rapidly diversifying blue counties around Houston and Dallas, including several in McKinney’s Collin County."

- In North Texas, schism deepens between GOP moderates and ‘skewed’ hard-liners
- Los Angeles Times
- By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
- May 10, 2021

As you can see on the map below from CSIS, a prominent and highly credible national security think tank. There is a cluster of dots around the north Dallas area.

The official press release from DOJ reads like science fiction, and is so full of blatant falsehoods as to be laughable, were the lives of nine Americans not at risk. To be fair, those sentenced did commit limited vandalism and brought fireworks that those inside the ICE detention facility could hear and see during the planned protest. One individual did fire a rifle at a law enforcement officer who had drawn his weapon to threaten protesters. These crimes are legitimate for prosecution, but the rest of DOJs claims are as mentioned, “fiction.” Most were sentenced to fifty years in federal prison for vandalism and fireworks, plus having some pamphlets about the protest. Everyone that the White House has pardoned so far, has committed far worse crimes.

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The US District Judge for Northern Texas who sentenced the defendants, also is the one who had declared a mistrial during jury selection, because the defendant’s lawyer was wearing a non-visible tee-shirt under her black blazer, with the faces of Dr. Martin Luther King and Shirley Chisholm on it. Any Texan would recognize such behavior as typical for many Texan judges, but this doesn’t make it right either. What is more infuriating for those that understand the law and the political landscape under this Republican administration whether in Texas or nationally, is that they are operating in the case regarding alleged “Antifa” terrorists, falsely. Antifa is not a terrorist movement and there is zero credible evidence to assert that they are. I wrote an entire deep-dive on this specific issue, back on October 13th of 2025.

"Now, let’s bring things up to where we are today. The current GOP regime that fully controls all three branches of our government, has been pushing ridiculous and unsupported battle cries with terms like, radical left, woke, extremists, terrorists and now most importantly, insurrectionists. In the mind of the GOP and their voters, anyone not as extreme right-wing as they are, are Antifa. Trump’s AG, William Barr tried this in Portland during the George Floyd protests, sending in all types of law enforcement from across the executive branch. After his failed operations, Barr had to publicly admit, that there was no organized Antifa, nor were they a threat. This was largely due to the then Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray making a public statement that dispelled any evidence of an organized Antifa. Yet the Republican lies and conspiracy theories survive, and are now bolstered by even more egregious lies." 

- Antifa, the GOP's made-up Boogieman
- Truth about Threats
- Paul Cobaugh
- October 13, 2025

This current false prosecution of ICE protesters, reinforces the administration’s false claim that Antifa is a terrorist organization. If we allow them to get away with this, every single American will be subject to arrest and long prison terms, just for offering public dissent against this autocratic administration and their precious GOP. I won’t pretend to speak for all of you, but I will gladly claim the title of Antifa. If this label was good enough for every single American that fought in WW II, it’s sure as hell good enough for me to espouse. In fact, I believe it’s time for a moment taken from the movie Spartacus. In the movie, when Rome demands to know which of the thousands of their captives were Spartacus, the rebellion leader, all prisoners claimed to be Spartacus. A dream of mine would be to rename the resistance, to Antifa. They cannot arrest all of us. After all, we are standing up to Republican fascism.

"Over the past few months, during his agency’s chaotic crackdowns in Chicago and Minneapolis, the U.S. Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino has worn an unusual uniform: a wide-lapel greatcoat with brass buttons and stars along one sleeve. It looks like it was taken right off the shoulders of a Wehrmacht officer in the 1930s. Bovino’s choice of garment is more than tough-guy cosplay (German media noted the aesthetic immediately). The coat symbolizes a trend: The Republicans, it seems, have a bit of a Nazi problem.

By this, I mean that some Republicans are deploying Nazi imagery and rhetoric, and espouse ideas associated with the Nazi Party during its rise to power in the early 1930s. A few recent examples: An ICE lawyer linked to a white-supremacist social-media account that praised Hitler was apparently allowed to return to federal court. Members of the national Young Republicans organization were caught in a group chat laughing about their love for Hitler. Vice President J. D. Vance shrugged off that controversy, instead of condemning the growing influence of anti-Semites in his party.

- The Republican Party Has a Nazi ProblemHow did the GOP become a haven for slogans and ideas straight out of the Third Reich?
- The Atlantic
- By Tom Nichols
- February 26, 2026

Back to our challenge of preventing our arrests as Antifa, just because we legally exercise our First Amendment right to free speech. This case and another very similar in Minnesota against ICE protesters, are the first that use the “Antifa terrorism” label in open court. Should this succeed, we must be prepared to act in defense of our constitutional rights. Remember, all January 6th protesters who did far worse than those accused in Texas and Minnesota, are now free, pardoned by Trump, and without objection by the GOP. J6 rioters and violent extremists, expressed the beliefs of several legitimate far-right domestic terror organizations, such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, etc. We all watched these felon’s actions and expressions of far-right violent extremism on our TV screens, phones, laptops, iPads, local papers and on and on and on. Yet in the case of those recently sentenced, there is no such proof, only dishonest accusations.

"Proud Boys

The Proud Boys were formed by Gavin McInnes, co-founder of Vice Media, in 2016 during the U.S. presidential election. Proud Boys consider themselves “Western chauvinists” who romanticize a traditional, male-dominated version of Western culture. While the Proud Boys vehemently deny adhering to a racist ideology, the organization is deeply rooted in white nationalism and misogyny. As of December 31, 2021, 83 Proud Boys members and sympathizers have allegedly carried out ideologically motivated crimes in the United States. This number includes 54 Proud Boys defendants who participated in the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021. Proud Boys defendants have come from 25 states and the District of Columbia, including 14 from Florida, 14 from New York, 7 from Washington, and 6 from Pennsylvania. Using auxiliary data from the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) project, these infographics provide information on the characteristics of U.S. Proud Boys defendants and their crimes."

- Proud Boys Crimes and Characteristics
- START, Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, the US center of excellence for peer-reviewed research on Terrorism.
- Jensen, Michael, Elizabeth Yates, and Sheehan Kane. 2022. "Proud Boys Crimes and Characteristics." College Park, MD: START

Oath Keepers

"Abstract: On January 6, 2021, 21 members of the Oath Keepers are alleged to have played a critical role in a wide-ranging conspiracy to storm the U.S. Capitol and disrupt the certification of the 2020 general election. Since its inception in 2009, the group has used a warped sense of patriotism, loose enforcement of laws surrounding paramilitary activity, and America’s founding revolutionary spirit to justify anti-government mobilization. It consistently walked the edge of political violence before taking part in the January 6 insurrection. While the group claims to be “guardians of the republic,” its principal target is the government itself—particularly entities representing perceived federal government overreach and vectors for tyrannical forces to suppress Americans’ natural rights. Following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a subtle but significant shift occurred in the group’s ideological focus, which saw left-wing political ideologies and social justice movements assume equal footing as targets for the group’s ire. Over the next four years, the group consistently mobilized armed responses, often posing as “security operations” to perceived threats, and increasingly expressed the belief that the United States was on the brink of or already in a state of civil war."

- The Oath Keepers and Their Role in the January 6 Insurrection
- Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Matthew Kriner, Jon Lewis
- December 2021, Volume 14, Issue 10

Three Percenters

The U.S. far-right milieu is not monolithic. It can be divided into at least five sections: racist extremism, namely white nationalism/supremacy; anti-government extremism; nativist extremism; anti-abortion extremism; and male supremacy.

The anti-government movement, which is the most relevant to this brief, can be categorized into six further sub-sections: militias, tax protesters, sovereign citizens, constitutional sheriffs, far-right segments of survivalist or “prepper” communities, and conspiracy propagandists.

The Three Percenter movement is a subset of the larger far-right anti-government militia movement, organized primarily around intense fear and loathing of the U.S. federal government. Although fixated on the federal government, anti-government extremists use coded rhetoric that also expresses anxiety toward historically disenfranchised racial/ethnic/religious minorities. Their ideology and narratives
are malleable enough to identify additional perceived enemies, including Muslims. They also often attempt to portray themselves as armed protectors of the U.S. Constitution against tyrants-in-waiting (the U.S. federal government) and various collaborators (anti-fascists [“antifa”], Black Lives Matter, George Soros, Muslims, and others)."

- The Three Percenters: A Look Inside an Anti-Government Militia
- START, Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, the US center of excellence for peer-reviewed research on Terrorism.
- Beutel, Alejandro and Daryl Johnson. 2021

These last quotes come from the very pinnacle of US Terrorism analysts. I posted excerpts from the three groups I noted earlier, along with access to the research. I wanted readers to know what justifies an organization’s labeling as a terrorist or violent extremist organization. Next, I will show you what START, the source for two of those groups say about Antifa. This way everyone can compare and contrast to see just how insane it is to label anti administration protesters as Antifa and as “domestic terrorists.”

Is Antifa a Terrorist Group?

Abstract:

"Starting in 2016, a number of protests and physical confrontations aimed at individuals and groups associated with right wing politics in the United States have been attributed to an ill-defined entity called “antifa”: short for anti-fascist. A high profile example took place in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11-12, 2017. During two days of conflict and violence, anti right wing protesters clashed with right wing supporters. During the second day of the confrontation, a right-wing supporter drove a car into a crowd of protesters, killing one person and injuring 35 others. While many antifa supporters see it as a defense against right wing extremism, some on the right view supporters instead as terrorists. I tackle these issues in this essay by applying the guidelines of the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) to determine whether the actions by antifa supporters during the Charlottesville incident constitute terrorism. I conclude that while the events share many characteristics of terrorist attacks, they do not include all of the elements of terrorism required by the GTD. I also question whether antifa can be considered to constitute a “group” at this point in time."

-  Is Antifa a Terrorist Group?
- START, Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, the US center of excellence for peer-reviewed research on Terrorism.
- LaFree, Gary. 2018

The bottom-line is, there is no Antifa organization, but there are a set of beliefs that call for the defense of citizens from fascist violence. They do not start fights. Their actions are deterrents and defensive, only when required to protect innocent citizens from far-right thuggery. This administration and their sycophantic Republican-led Congress, don’t care about truth and evidence. Trump and the GOP label Americans as Antifa or domestic terrorists associated with Antifa. Such a label is nothing more than a tool employed by fascist leadership to justify rounding up dissenters. By their definition, everyone in the resistance is Antifa. As for me, I’m proud to accept the label. Being Antifa, has historically been the honorable position of all Americans, that respect our constitution and our history.

Labeling legal dissent, domestic terrorism is quite literally, straight out of the Nazi playbook for pre-war Germany. The German word for this is, Gleichschaltung, which translates roughly to Nazification in English.

"Gleichschaltung was the process of the Nazi Party taking control over all aspects of Germany. It is otherwise known as coordination or Nazification. The process primarily took place between 1933-1934.

The Nazi’s started with the Civil Service , issuing the Act for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on the 7 April 1933. This act legalised removing anyone of non-Ayran descent from the civil service.

In the judicial system specifically, this act removed any judges that were deemed non-compliant with Nazi laws or principles. This act was reinforced by the German Civil Service code of 26 January 1937, which retired any judges or judicial official who would not intervene in cases and rule in favour of the Nazis. The People’s Court, a court created by the Nazis in April 1934 with judges chosen specifically for their Nazi beliefs, replaced the Supreme Court. With these measures in place, the Nazification of the judicial system was complete.

Gleichschaltung was applied across every possible aspect of government policy."

- Gleichschaltung
- The Holocaust Explained

Today’s GOP is using Hitler’s playbook on to consolidate power in the Executive Branch without interference from any other element of government. To be clear, those who know WW II history well, long ago recognized the GOP’s Project 2025, as a modified Gleichschaltung, with several elements being nearly verbatim from the pre-war Nazi playbook. Take a look at some of the examples below from the Holocaust Encyclopedia and you will easily see how closely the administration is following Hitler’s strategy.

• Using Emergency Decrees to Govern

In July 1930, Hindenburg and Brüning issued an emergency decree to enact a deflationary budget despite parliament’s opposition. They used Article 48 of the German constitution. Article 48 permitted the German president to take measures bypassing parliamentary consent in cases of national emergency. Parliament, in line with its constitutional right, voted to force Hindenburg to rescind the emergency decree. In response, Hindenburg and Brüning dissolved parliament and called new special parliamentary elections.

• Nazi Party Disruption and Obstruction in Parliament

In parliament, Nazi deputies were deliberately disruptive and rowdy. They refused to support any of the Brüning government’s measures and regularly called votes of no-confidence. They derailed parliamentary sessions by introducing irrelevant points of order.

Brüning attempted to work around this situation. With Hindenburg’s support, he repeatedly resorted to Article 48 to issue emergency decrees. He enacted economic measures that did little to relieve unemployment or help those in poverty. As a result, the Communists began referring to him as the “hunger chancellor” (Hungerkanzler). Brüning also sent parliament into long periods of recess.

• Undermining Public Order With Political Violence

By 1931, political violence on Germany’s streets had become unmanageable. This was in large part because of the increase in paramilitary groups affiliated with parties from across the political spectrum. The Nazi Party’s paramilitary, the SA, was especially radical and violent. SA men often abused Jews and smashed the windows of Jewish-owned businesses. They regularly brawled with and even killed their political opponents, especially Communists. In turn, scores of Nazis were killed by opposing groups. The German government and police forces failed to contain the political violence. This further undermined many Germans’ faith in the Weimar Republic.

Summary

This essay is already longer than I anticipated and I am grateful for those who’ve come along to the end. Today’s work is in my opinion, something that is necessary for us to understand, if those of us in the resistance are to remain out of prison and effective through the midterms. Should the domestic terrorism charges and allegations of Antifa as a domestic terror organization stand against those unfairly sentenced yesterday by Judge Mark T. Pittman, every last one of us is in danger of arrest and imprisonment. Of course, our currently cowardly mainstream media isn’t covering this story well, so we must share this serious threat with each other. It’s too late to turn our backs on the republic and save ourselves by remaining silent, but this is exactly what our administration of fascists wishes for. If we stay quiet, the GOP wins and we lose our republic. It is not more complicated than that.

As I have noted often, my oath to the nation when I joined the military was, “to protect and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.” I have no choice but to fight on. From what I’ve witnessed from the resistance patriots, I believe that you will soldier on as well. I’m personally humbled and grateful for everyone that will stand against tyranny, and for our constitution. In my book… every one of you is not only a hero, but the very definition of what it means to be a patriot. Thank you all.

Onward,

Publius Redux

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TAT readers,

Welcome to your weekend. Today’s essay, Part X in my series regarding the war with Iran, captures some of my deep frustration with our failed leadership and the near fatal, self-inflicted wound to our national security. America has enjoyed unilateral global superpower primacy since the end of the Cold War, or at least we did until Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Now, two years into his second administration he has in my professional opinion, undermined our national security and global status to the point that there’s a good argument to be made, that we are now, number two in the world.

1. Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

2. Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

3. Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

4. Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

5. Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

6. Part VI, the Iran War: Never say it cannot get worse.

7. Part 7: The Iran War, Trump surrenders - by Paul Cobaugh

8. The Iran War, Part VIII: The liars, cowards and thieves, looting our household budgets.

9. Part IX, the Iran War: Hold your horses everyone, a yet unsigned MOU is not a peace deal

As a nation, we once saw the Soviet Union, now Russia and Xi’s China as our most capable and dangerous competitors. Until roughly six months into Russia’s genocidally intended invasion of Ukraine, Putin was Xi’s peer. After Putin’s invasion began its long descent into irrelevance as a global military, Xi quietly began supporting Putin, as did Iran, N. Korea, India tangentially and a whole host of other states operating in Putin and Xi’s spheres of influence. Now that Trump, his administration and the GOP have surrendered to one of the globe’s most heinous regimes, our global power status looks only slightly less humiliating than Putin’s thrashing in Ukraine.

To rub salt into our wounds, 13 American service-members are KIA, killed in action with hundreds of others, WIA/ wounded in action. Across the region, there are another fifty plus thousand dead and wounded from allied nations and other nations in the region. The cost to date, suspected to be in the neighborhood of eighty billion American tax dollars, despite the administration and Pentagon’s claims of far less. Even though they claim a smaller number, they are still demanding as of this week, another 80 billion for the war they falsely claim is over. If one considers the intangible ramifications such as economics, commerce, allies etc., it’s not even close to being over. Any national security professional with deep experience in the region will tell you the same. Humbly, I submit that I am one such professional.

In addition to my deep military experience in the region, I also have a fifty-year love affair with Israel, a daughter living there, whose mother, my first-wife was born there. We married while serving together in the US Army 74-77. In Judaism, children are the religion of their mother and my children were raised in Jewish traditions. We’ve traveled there as a family and I’ve walked among the diverse Israeli population from north to south and east to west. Despite this “love affair,” I sternly forbid myself from exhibiting any bias when it comes to professional analysis of national security situations in the region, and especially in regard to Israel’s behavior. I began writing what would become more than twenty essays assessing the war in Gaza, only a day after the October 7th massacre by a genocidal Hamas-led terrorist army, sponsored, trained and equipped, by Iran. I also named Bibi’s far-right Israeli administration as one of the 6 nations or organizations, responsible for the October 7th massacre.

As recent readers know, this is my 10th in this series about the Iran war. I call things as I see them so that I can offer all of you, a picture of these deeply troubling and interrelated events, as clearly and accurately as possible. The point is, the region is in many ways, my backyard. I have learned over decades, that the only solutions to the seemingly endless strive, is to level the playing field with truth. Only then can sustainable solutions be identified and pursued. The Camp David Accords are a prime example. The situation we are now faced with, is negotiating the terms of our surrender to Iran and Xi. If we do not see this situation clearly and negotiate accordingly, we’ll lose far more than just this war. To date, most of the White House’s and Pentagon’s dishonest pressers, along with spineless western reporting, has denied American voters the ability to gain a clearer perspective. How this war ends, will have a long-lasting effect on the US, our allies and the stability of the world. We must all understand the risks.

Next, let’s look at where we are, what to expect in the near future.

There is no way to accurately predict where this MOU nonsense is going. The fourteen points of the document that we’ve seen, are functionally ambiguous, which means this document, is little more than a handshake. As noted in Part IX, Iran and by extension, Xi, are in the driver’s seat. As an outlier, Netanyahu has taken on the role of “spoiler” to anyone’s intentions. To be blunt, the MOU, reads more like the terms of our surrender to both. The truth is, there is little faith in expert analytical circles that this MOU will last at all, especially since the fourteen point document is largely Iran’s wish list. It humiliates the US, leaves Israel unsecured and comes with a requirement to pay Iran three hundred billion dollars in reparations.

"Making peace is more difficult than starting wars. President Donald Trump has found this to be painfully true over the past months.

Now that a ceasefire arrangement, or memorandum of understanding (MoU), has been made public, it is possible to measure what has been agreed against the standards of international law and practice. 

The 14-point document accommodates virtually the full catalogue of Iranian demands, which would have seemed entirely unrealistic when made during the active conflict. The US is losing its key pressure points, whether economic or military. And Iran’s nuclear obligations are yet to be determined. Other war aims, like stopping Iranian support for proxy forces, do not feature in the instrument."

- The US–Iran memorandum of understanding nods to international law. Can that be taken seriously?
- Chatham House
- Marc Weller
- June 19th, 2026

In straightforward terms, this MOU is actually a 60 day ceasefire and expects via negotiation, to solve all of the major issues in two months time. This is a pipe dream at best, insanity at worst. There are major sticking points among the fourteen points on the MOU. The stay on paying Iran tolls for using the Strait is only on hold for 60 days, while they attempt to get all of the Arab Gulf oil states together to finalize a permanent plan. Considering that most of our gulf oil state allies are furious with us at the moment for failing to protect them or in most cases, even warn them of the impending war. OPEC also just suffered the loss of the UAE at the end of April, which somewhat lessens their ability to manage oil prices. There has been tension within OPEC off and on, for years. This is a serious obstacle to getting all of the affected gulf states to agree to much, within the 60 days allotted.

Right from the very first point of the 14, there are landmines. The very first point requires Israel to immediately enter into a ceasefire with Iran’s terrorist army, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel was not even included in the MOU talks, but Trump and the Iranian leadership seem to think they can just dictate her national security without asking. This point has already failed, with Israeli strikes against Hezbollah strongholds already occurring the very next day. Here’s where Bibi holds a powerful “trump card” (pun intended). Iran demands Israeli compliance and Netanyahu so far… isn’t having it. Much as I despise his Trumpishness, his reasoning for eradicating Hezbollah as a functional army next door, is sound.

Point number 6 requiring the US and regional partners to pay 300 billion dollars to Iran for war reparations, is hard to swallow for Americans being hard squeezed by our highest inflation in 3 years. The MOU also calls for relieving Iran of the painful sanctions that have critically hurt her economy for decades. A $300B paycheck along with sanctions relief, is an extraordinary boost to her long-depleted economy. It might be just as accurate to say that should these things come to pass, it will be the rough equivalent of Trump investing in Iran’s future, with our tax dollars.

As long as we are discussing money, Point 11 declares that the US will “unfreeze” restricted Iranian funds roughly estimated to be $100B. The Obama-era JCPOA also included “unfrozen” funds for Iran but in the amount of $1.7B. The great irony of providing Iran all of this cash, is that the IRGC will be a notable benefactor. The IRGC or The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is the most powerful force in Iran that reports directly to the Supreme Leader, not the military high command. They also include the Quds Force, which is the special forces-like organization responsible for terrorizing their adversaries around the world for decades.

"Four senior Iranian sources described how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was uniquely placed to capture a big chunk of any financial rewards that would accrue from sanctions relief, renewed oil exports and foreign investment.

Their central role may also prove to be one of the many obstacles to a deal: with the Guards so firmly enmeshed in Iranian business, their terrorism designation could significantly complicate efforts to free the economy from sanctions."

- Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to win big if US lifts sanctions as part of peace deal
- Times of Israel
- By Parisa Hafezi and ANGUS MCDOWALL
- June 20, 2026

These examples are just the tip-of-the-iceberg but suffice to illustrate how deep a hole Trump and Co. have dug for us all. The old adage about, “the first rule when you have yourself in a hole, is to stop digging” could hardly fit better for this Iran War and surrender debacle by the administration. For all of the words written explaining the MOU of surrender, I don’t believe they will matter in the end. As always, I’m willing to be wrong, but I don’t see this ceasefire holding. In fact, it was already broken within the first 24 hours due to Israeli attacks against targets in Lebanon. Israel continues her fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon although Bibi claims operations against Iran have ceased, unless or if Iran restarts her offensive actions against Israel.

The long-anticipated official signing and meeting in Switzerland on Friday, never materialized, with no reschedule in sight. Trump can’t make up his mind whether he hates Netanyahu or loves him, after saying in a Truth Social Post a couple of days ago that “he had no f#$king judgement” and praising him today as a “great warrior.” If Israel does comply, we all must ask ourselves what Trump promised Israel in exchange for their compliance. In the meantime, we still have roughly 50 thousand troops in the region along with ships, aircraft and other tools of war. The cost to us, the American people simply digs us deeper into a deficit hole, much like it has to the household budgets of working-class Americans all across the nation.

As far as our global national security posture goes, it has diminished significantly in stature since inauguration day but has nosedived since the Iran war began. Don’t forget that when Trump was in China, he asked Xi to use his notable leverage with Iran to work towards a ceasefire. Xi does nothing for free, and based on the reporting of expert observers of the China summit meeting, it appears that Trump is beginning his backpedaling on Taiwan’s defense. He agreed with Xi’s demand to halt the prearranged $14B arms sale to Taiwan. Just recently, Trump has also okayed the sale of our most sophisticated computer chips to China, once considered a line not to be crossed by either party. After Trump approved the sale, the Chinese decided that they don’t want them anyway.

Xi set up Trump to be humiliated by letting him brag about future Nvidia sales to China and then, refused to buy even one single chip. This type of tactic at that level is designed to be a message to the world, regarding who is in charge. It sure as hell isn’t Trump. The official reason given by China for refusing to buy our advanced AI chips was, “that they no longer consider US businesses reliable partners.”

"A recent New York Times headline says it all: “Trump Approved a Nvidia Chip for Sale in China. Beijing Doesn’t Want It.” The administration endured substantial domestic criticism for approving sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to 10 Chinese companies, but because of Beijing’s continuing objections, as of mid-May not a single H200 chip had been sold to Chinese companies. Following his recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping—where, according to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, chip export controls were not a major topic of discussion—U.S. President Donald Trump said China had not bought any H200 chips “because they chose not to. They want to try and develop their own.”

- Ball game’s over—the US is out of the AI chip market in China
- Brookings Institution
- Mark MacCarthy
- June 17, 202

With China now holding such a prominent role in the region, Xi is one step closer to moving his China Dream Strategy forward globally. The massive employment of our most critical munitions in Iran, meant that we had to take prepositioned munitions from the Asian theater to keep up operations. This makes us far more vulnerable in the Pacific. Our diminished strength makes Taiwan and our allies less safe. The way Trump behaved in Europe at the G7, and Pete Hegseth berated NATO allies this week are little changed from them first taking office for his second term. The administration has treated our allies, especially NATO with utter contempt and arrogance. We are nearly friendless now in the world, depleting our limited national security resources as fast as we jettison allies. Like the early 17th century prose by John Donne, “no man is an island,” so goes with nations.

I wish I could offer everyone better news in this essay. It’s not in the cards. We’ll all be living in uncertainty unless adults begin advocating for the US rather than our useless and corrupt Vice President and real estate wannabe diplomats like Kushner and Witkoff. I can hardly be more serious regarding my concerns for our national security. As much as this war demonstrates the criminal negligence of our leadership, it is only a symptom of a far more aggressive cancer, called the Trump administration and Trump-era Republican Party.

We’ve now bombed 9 different countries since inauguration day, lost a war to Iran, threatened to attack our NATO allies over Greenland, illegally invaded a sovereign nation, whose oil we now steal, are illegally blockading Cuba, etc., etc., etc. The administration is a cult of maniacal conquest without having ever read history. If they had, they would know that it doesn’t end well for anyone. November is our chance to at least slow the Trump/GOP cancer threatening our values and making us vulnerable to global predators. We can do this, so long as we tap into the true American principles that live inside us.

I’ll try for something more uplifting in the next essay.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today, we’ll explore the relatively limited information that is slipping out into the publicly available news about a so-called “peace deal” with Iran.” Until there’s more in writing we won’t know the full extent, but from our current vantage point, it would appear that the US, Gulf states and the region will end up economically, and strategically worse off than they were before the war’s February 28th start date. The situation remains fluid and still fraught with peril, especially regarding Israel and their ongoing operations against Hezbollah and Hamas. In fact, over the weekend, the Bibi and Trump bromance experienced a vulgar spat, emanating of course from Trump.

"US President Donald Trump lashed out at Israel on Sunday after the IDF struck a Hezbollah target in Beirut, angering Tehran and potentially risking the deal Washington is trying to finalize with the Islamic Republic.

Reportedly accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having “no fucking judgment,” the president also declared that the IDF should be prevented from carrying out any more attacks on any part of Lebanon moving forward, not just Beirut. The suggestion was said to raise concerns among Israeli officials that the prospective US-Iran deal could sharply curb Israel’s military freedom of action.

“This morning’s attack on Beirut should not have happened, particularly on a special day when we are so close to a peace deal with Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social."

- Trump says Netanyahu ‘has no f**king judgment’ after Beirut strike – report
- Times of Israel
- By Lazar Berman and Nava Freiberg
- 14 June 2026, 10:38 pm

That this agreement was announced just prior to the G7 in France this week, is no mystery. The Trump administration is taking a beating all around the world for so severely disrupting the global economy, something that we here in the states fully understand as well. When monitoring national security issues around the world, I recommend reading credible local or regional news, to add a great deal of clarity, that cannot be found in US and some western reporting. This is especially true under the current administration, who has leaned hard on all US news services, networks and publications to only report positive news about the administration. This keeps a significant amount of critical information out of our hands here at home.

Today I will try and put together a clearer picture out of the slow trickle of information from a widely disparate group of sources. As a spoiler alert, it would appear that we’ve lost this war and are attempting to achieve a face-saving exit. More on this later in today’s essay. Before beginning today’s perspective, I have also listed below, the links to the eight-part series I wrote the first few weeks of the war. For those with interest in these links, please consider them deep background reading. There are never easy explanations for any major event in the Middle East and other closely related regions. A little background is essential for a better understanding the complexity of the challenges that lie before us. As you can see below in Part VII, I declared that we had already lost the war all the way back on April 11th. Now things are even worse.

• Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

• Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

• Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

• Part VI, the Iran War: Never say it cannot get worse.

• Part 7: The Iran War, Trump surrenders - by Paul Cobaugh

• The Iran War, Part VIII: The liars, cowards and thieves, looting our household budgets.

Onward

Oh the web of lies that this administration has told about the Iran war. We’ve experienced countless announcements from the White House, most often oriented towards insider-trading opportunities for those close to the administration. The stock market, oil prices and a whole bevy of other commodities have bounced around like a pinball, due to those announcements. Still, the alleged “ceasefire” that really wasn’t, began back on April 8th. In the interim, the world economy has experienced a notable and occasionally severe wound, all of which was preventable ,had the Trump administration made even a cursory attempt to strategize and plan the operation all the way through an exit strategy. They didn’t and now… the global economy and national security situations will remain painful and chaotic for the foreseeable future.

Let’s begin with what we do know, or that which has at least been reported in credible reporting, here at home and abroad. So, what do we call this alleged agreement? Is it an MOU/ Memorandum of Understanding or any of the other names the administration has used, such as a “peace deal,” the beginning of a lasting peace, an agreement and so on and so forth. As you can see from the page one headlines from the Times of Israel below, things don’t sound nearly as “done” as one would believe.

Even the Trump administration can’t get their messaging together. Trump claimed the MOU would be signed yesterday for his birthday. J.D. Vance, claims it’s already signed but most international audiences have been told that it won’t be signed until this coming Friday, in Switzerland. Typical Trump administration chaos where the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. For the time being, I will believe in the Friday in Switzerland story.

Most government spokesmen at home and in the region, also claim the MOU includes putting an end to the wars that began after Hamas’ terrorists stormed across the border into southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, raping, murdering, torturing and taking hostages. Israel who is central to the entire MOU, currently claims that it will continue to defend herself against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas’ in Gaza.

To further complicate the picture, the Jerusalem Times reports an hour or so ago, that the IDF and Mossad do not concur with any such agreement. Israel was excluded from the talks leading up to the MOU. Without Israel’s compliance, the MOU as expressed in reporting, is DOA or “dead on arrival.” My professional opinion is that excluding Israel was nearly as foolish as the first Trump administration excluding the Afghan government from the talks leading up to Trump’s abandonment of Afghanistan, when he signed a treaty with the Taliban to end the war.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera, reports that the MOU is built around 14-points but without any confirmation regarding what those points pertain to. It’s important here to remember that the western side of the Persian Gulf are Sunni Muslims and that Iran, is Shia. This difference means a great deal within Islam in general, but acutely so in the Gulf and greater Middle East. What is called the Sunni/ Shia split dates back to 632 AD and has grown far more contentious with the passage of time. In other words, there is no love lost between the two. Also Qatar, like the rest of the Sunni side has experienced a great deal of pain from Iranian attacks, simply because the Sunnis have largely been aligned with the West, including the US.

The issue of Sunni vs. Shia has another problem for the US and the West. The Houthis are from Yemen and although a different version of Shia Islam, are allied with Iran. That they are located in Yemen at the Bab-al-Mandab Strait, that controls access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. This is a trump card that Iran still has in their pocket should they need it. What I mean by this is, even with the Strait of Hormuz open, should the Houthis again decide to close the Bab-al-Mandab Straits, oil still could not reach the west without transiting all the way around the Southern tip of Africa, thereby slowing recovery and increasing the costs to consumers, due to adding significant transit time and fuel.

"Three days following the October 7 attack on Israel, Yemen’s Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi warned that if the United States intervenes in the Hamas-Israel War directly, the group will respond by taking military action. In mid-October, U.S. officials announced that the USS Carney downed several Houthi cruise missiles and drones fired toward Israel. The Houthis continued to launch several rounds of missiles and drones until it officially announced entry into the war to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on October 31."

"On November 19, the Houthis hijacked a commercial ship in the Red Sea and have since attacked at least thirty-three others with drones, missiles, and speed boats as of late January 2024. As a result, major shipping companies have stopped using the Red Sea—through which almost 15 percent of global seaborne trade passes—and have rerouted to take longer and costlier journeys around Southern Africa instead. The situation has resulted in heightened shipping and insurance costs, stoking fears of a renewed cost-of-living crisis."

- Conflict in Yemen and the Red Sea
- Council on Foreign Relations
- By the Center for Preventative Action
- Updated, April, 2026

A week ago, the Houthis threatened to again close the Bab-al-Mandab Strait, in support of Iran’s war with the US and Israel. If this occurs, the global oil supply from the gulf, will continue to be partially disrupted. To add to this, we must talk about China and their now dominant role in the region. China has deeply invested infrastructure projects in the region, as a part of their BRI/ Belt and Road Initiative. Xi has a Naval Base right next to ours in Djibouti just outside of the Bab-al-Mandab Strait, which is the entry point for vessels using the Suez Canal. China is rehabilitating the Suez while controlling ports all across the Mediterranean, including the part at the northern end too. China also has a role in the primary Israeli port at Haifa. The last I checked, China actually owns, manages or is building some 60 ports all around the perimeter of Africa.

To make matters worse for the West, China is more deeply invested infrastructure in all of Africa than we or our allies are cumulatively. The reason that we care about China in regards to the MOU is because, China is the big winner in this war. Last month, Trump went to China and asked Xi for assistance in putting pressure on his Iranian allies to wind down the war. Whenever tough, powerful autocrats like Xi do a favor for someone, there is an expectation of something in return. During that trip, Trump agreed to sell China our most sophisticated computer chips, that we’d protected for a very long time. As I have written previously, at this moment, I believe that China just may be the world’s premier superpower, not the US. Trump going, hat-in-hand to Xi for a favor, pretty much seals the deal.

"Among Middle Eastern countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq topped the list of Chinese project destinations. China’s Belt and Road Initiative engagement in Saudi Arabia stood at $19.8 billion, the third highest globally, and Iraq accounted for $4.5 billion. Saudi Arabia also saw the largest Chinese engagement in green energy last year, worth approximately $5.2 billion. Total Chinese Belt and Road Initiative investment in Saudi Arabia from 2013 through last year reached $40 billion, ranking second only to Pakistan.

Kazakhstan was the single largest recipient of Belt and Road Initiative investment in 2025, with about $25.8 billion, followed by Egypt at $10.2 billion, according to Green Finance & Development Center estimates.

The Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013, is Beijing’s flagship global infrastructure drive to expand trade routes and deepen its economic presence across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and beyond, spanning transport, energy, ports, and increasingly, green and digital projects."

- China’s Foreign Investment Jumps as Beijing Bypasses Iran and RussiaAmong Middle Eastern Countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq Topped the List of Chinese ‘Belt and Road’ Project Destinations
- Middle East Forum
- By Dalga Khatinoglu
- Feb 07, 2026

As we grow closer to the end of this shorter than usual essay, I want to encourage readers to try and see the “big picture” regarding the ongoing geo-strategic shift. Seeing it holistically will help you see just how poor of a strategic decision it was for the US to embark on the path to open warfare with Iran. Don’t get me wrong, the Iranian regime at the onset of the war, was and has long been a cruel, ideologically corrupt threat to global stability. To make matters worse, they’ve also done plenty of Putin’s and Xi’s dirty work. Iran was Putin’s most important supplier of high tech weaponry and other war materials. If there’s any good that we have achieved throughout this fiasco, it’s that it has taken a big bite out of what Putin needs and now can’t get.

I won’t belabor this particular essay but wanted to give everyone some clarity to the bits and pieces of news dribbling out of official sources. So where do we stand now? Well, Pakistan, the mediators for the MOU talks, still claims the signing on Friday in Switzerland. The Strait will slowly begin opening. There are plenty of mines to deal with in the strait along with a list of other issues to address before ships can safely transit the Strait of Hormuz. Most global experts claim that it will take up to a year, just to get close to where we were at the outset of the war. This means slowly decreasing but still higher than normal fuel prices. That makes all goods and services more expensive as well, including our groceries, again due to added fuel costs.

As for assessing what little we know about the deal, the bottom line is that we’re worse off than when we started and much worse off than had the last Trump administration not torn up the JCPOA or original Iran deal from 2016. We’ve been at increased risk ever since Trump removed us from the Obama-era deal, which also included China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia. Now China sits in the proverbial catbird’s seat. They are not combatants, are serving as enablers of peace, have the preponderance of influence with the primary combatants, more to gain from peace, and deep partnerships all across the region.

To further our self-inflicted woes, the US has come through this in a manner not unsimilar to the humiliation Putin is suffering from losing to Ukraine. True, we’ve had some battlefield successes but could not unilaterally dislodge the hardline regime without a long and costly ground war. Our humiliation is not nearly as dear as that heaped onto Russian forces, but it’s still quite embarrassing. At the end of such a conflict, we’d be far weaker than we are now. Remember, we have expended so many of our stockpiled munitions, especially those taken from INDO-PACOM, the command in charge of the Pacific and South, SE and SW Asia. This gives China an advantage militarily as that it will take a couple of years or so to rebuild our supply of those munitions. It not only makes Taiwan far more vulnerable, but our allies in the region too.

At the end of the day, China’s dominance is growing. Putin owes Xi as does whoever is running Iran these days. India cannot compete unless she finds a way to remain non-aligned in a region increasingly managed by her age-old and often bitter rival, China. I actually feel for our friends in India due to being between a rock and a hard place. Modi must have oil and with Xi having some leverage over Russia and Iran, India is in a pickle.

If you remember nothing else from this essay, just know that this foolhardy and foolish war has cost the US enormous respectability while also calling into question our military readiness and expertise. We lost or have deeply wounded our former partnerships among Arab Gulf oil states as well as our NATO allies. The embarrassment of very limited success, having to ask Xi for help and the shedding of more allies, has in my opinion, edged the US into a dead heat with China for global preeminence or even into a second place position as a superpower.

The war, the alleged MOU and being able to sustain the peace, are all in question at the moment. We’ll probably not see the MOU’s points until Friday after the planned signing in Switzerland. I’m not expecting any real surprises though and from the way things look at the moment, outside of no more deaths, I don’t see any significantly positive outcomes.

My very best for your week and back later in the week with a new essay.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is in my opinion, about one of the most dangerous aspects of the Seditious Republican Party and their chums in the oligarchy, that are aggressively censoring all Americans in one way or another. Here’s the premise; our founders expected citizens and residents to be well and accurately informed as a foundational aspect of being a responsible citizen. In the entire Trump/ MAGA era, the Republican Party has been perpetually driving a stake through the heart of the very truth that those brilliant and courageous founders expected us to have access to. If we do not take the actions required to lay our boots against the backside of cowardly mainstream media, the music and entertainment industry cowards, tech and social media platforms, as well as the tsunami of foreign influence, there will be no truth left to inform us. If this continues, there will no longer be an American republic.

I’m beyond fed up with the “fake news” GOP and their sycophantic base. They are pointing a gun directly at the First Amendment, the embodiment of our most closely held constitutional rights. Law will not protect us, nor the unfulfilled promises of social media and AI purveyors claiming their only interest is “free speech.” Their commitment to free speech is as laughable as the current version of the Republican Party being the party of “family values.” As any person with sound common-sense knows, an absence of facts deprives us all of not only truth but America’s future.

To be clear, my profession of supporting and defending our national security via ethical influence, is far too complicated for one essay. Today I will present just the overview of censorship and should there be further interest, I will begin writing a short series of essays that flush out today’s overview in greater depth. I was planning on writing that series anyway for the IWI or Irregular Warfare Institute, where I am an advisor, but believe that it is more important at this critical juncture of American History to present the truth to my fellow Americans. Without the explosion of the so-called “fake news,” supported by Russia, this administration which their party has wielded as a bludgeon against every single American, there would have been no Trump-era. In order to maintain the power they have accumulated in our government, they have turned censorship into a nuclear weapon that destroys the very truth we require to make the sound decisions which sustain the republic.

Some of this essay will necessarily go down some technical and legal rabbit holes however, I will do all possible to thread the needle of understanding, by writing with understanding for all, rather than the professional community I originally was going to write for. It’s that important for our future. I’ve long written professionally and privately, that I firmly believe that immoral and adversarial influence operations were the most perilous threat to American democracy. The Republican Party in and preceding the Trump/ MAGA era, has easily proved my beliefs. Censorship in the hand of tyrants, is part of those influence operations and ground zero for the acute threat that could end 250 years of our style and system of government. President Lincoln spoke eloquently in the final words of his iconic Gettysburg Address regarding our citizen’s duty to the cause of liberty.

" that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- The Gettysburg Address
- President Abraham Lincoln
- November 19th, 1863

What is censorship anyway?

There are so many comments in social media and our news feeds these days as uncertain as most Americans, as to what censorship means legally or operationally under our constitution and legal frameworks. Let’s clear this up, right up front. First of all, I’ll begin with a description from the esteemed ALA or American Library Association. Yes, the ALA has been a tireless warrior in support of our First Amendment, largely by fighting unconstitutional book bans. Their tireless efforts to uphold the one amendment that the current administration consistently violates, is critical to defining who we are as Americans. Here are a handful of the foundational points about censorship in America.

1. The First Amendment within our Bill of Rights

Amendment I

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

- The Bill of Rights: A Transcription
- National Archives

2. With very few and very narrow exceptions, it is illegal for the government to censor speech. The legality of censorship is oriented almost exclusively towards limiting government to interfere with our constitutionally guaranteed free speech. The First Amendment only pertains to government censorship, but there are some extremely narrow exceptions. In fact, on rare occasions, there may actually be times when censorship benefits us all regarding national security. The question that’s relevant here, is that this administration has become like the old tale about, “the boy who cried wolf,” because their noxious claims of “national emergencies” are false… every single time. This invalidates them from employing any of those narrow exceptions for their brutal agenda. The First Amendment concerns more than freedom of speech and there isn’t one word in the entire amendment that the current administration hasn’t walked on with muddy boots. They have and continue to violate everything within the First Amendment.

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   Content based Regulation
   
   "As a general matter, government may not regulate speech “because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” 1 “It is rare that a regulation restricting speech because of its content will ever be permissible.” 2 The constitutionality of content-based regulation is determined by a compelling interest test derived from equal protection analysis: the government “must show that its regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest and is narrowly drawn to achieve that end.” 3 Narrow tailoring in the case of fully protected speech requires that the government “choose[ ] the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest.” 4 Application of this test ordinarily results in invalidation of the regulation.5"
   
   - Content based Regulation
   - LII, Legal Information Institute
   - Cornell Law School

   

3. I greatly appreciate ALA’s definition of censorship

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   "Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that some individuals, groups, or government officials find objectionable or dangerous.  Would-be censors try to use the power of the state to impose their view of what is truthful and appropriate, or offensive and objectionable, on everyone else. Censors pressure public institutions, like libraries, to suppress and remove information they judge inappropriate or dangerous from public access, so that no one else has the chance to read or view the material and make up their own minds about it. The censor wants to prejudge materials for everyone.  It is no more complicated than someone saying, “Don’t let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it!”
   
   - What is Censorship?
   - American Library Association

4. Under the Republican leadership in government, the unconstitutional and illegal manner in which they censor Americans, is not always overt. They employ a wide variety of tactics, strategies and partnerships outside of their official government purview to do their dirty work, therefore complicating some aspects of the legal restraints they long ago ignored. Just because they can find a legal loophole to make their actions technically “legal,” doesn’t mean they are adhering to the intent of our constitution or the spirit of the law.

   

Every single American is now being influenced in a manner that either censors what they see, read, watch or hear, or promotes the ideology of Sedition and fake-patriotism. Whoever and wherever you are, you are being manipulated and it’s really that simple. So if you’re like me and an American raised on the sanctity of our republic and the ideals it represents, you are undoubtedly deeply offended that our government tolerates and willfully deploys influence operations against us. Yes, censorship is part of influence campaigns.

Oh and by the way… not one of us that uses digital technology at home or at work, has any more secrets. Our vehicles, homes, shopping, phones, TVs and anything digital at home or where you venture outside of your home, is spying on you. That data goes to enormous data owners, like Amazon or FB for example, who then use this data to target you in order to exploit your wallet, regardless of whether you need a product or service, or not. This administration and their deplorable tech oligarchs like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and more, know everything about our lives due to their data thefts. DOGE isn’t the only criminal though, and the data they stole, violates our Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

- Search and Seizure
- Constitution Center.org

These points above are the immovable pieces on the battlefield against GOP influence campaigns and as this essay explains, the piece regarding censorship. War is often ungracious in not providing the battlefield or “good ground” we would like. Sometimes strategy, timing and a hundred other important issues deal us a bad hand. For this reason, we must be honest with ourselves what the immovable pieces are. Now that we know some of these pieces, let’s continue discussing some of the pieces of censorship that are affecting our lives and our republic.

Digital media

In today’s America, the current administration, many major US and foreign corporate entities and those they direct to “moderate” or censor the speech of political opponents, has become pervasive, especially via their coercion of all media, their networks and parent corporations or owners. The attack on our constitutional rights and privacy is being waged aggressively around the clock, every day of every month and every year. There’s an entire strategy for this by the administration, the GOP and their foreign allies, such as Russia, China and those within their spheres of influence.

Then there are others, such as the places we all connect on social media, like LinkedIn, FB, Meta, X, Parler, Truth Social and so on. No matter how you access your online interests, your data is being collected and it has enormous value to those that have it in their grubby little paws. Like so many other AI surprises we’re all getting lately, the collection and exploitation of our personal data is one of the most dangerous and pernicious.

Let me tell you a short personal story for a moment, and those of you who’ve ever been robbed or burglarized will identity with this instantly. In my long life, on two occasions my home was burglarized. Once your home has been burglarized, there is a deep, unshakeable disgust that you’ve been horribly violated. Strangers entered your home and rifled through everything you own, no matter how personal. It doesn’t matter what they touched, because everything feels dirty, contaminated and tainted, even those items of little value to the thieves but deeply sentimental and personal to you. This is how I now feel when using digital technology due to the data collectors.

Everything we all do publicly is now collected digitally. If you take a drive and stop for gas and pay with a credit or debit card, there is a transaction record. Your purchases when you go inside for a coffee or snack, is digitized. At a minimum, your presence and purchase have been collected. The store probably has cameras and audio recording and anyone with a phone taking photos outside could be collecting images and audio, even accidently. All of that data goes to data owners. Data owners believe that they hold the keys to the kingdom and in many ways, they are right. Data is the new nuclear weapon of influence.

Data owners use that data to build digital profiles of everyone. What I mean by digital profiles is that every single piece of data collected becomes like those paint by number sets from childhood. Every morsel of data they collect on you, fills in a little piece of your identity. Collect enough pieces and you can clearly see the identity of any person. Knowing a person’s identity can then be used to increase the owner’s ability to influence you, to buy a product or service, vote a certain way or shape the way you perceive the world around you. Amazon for example uses their data to suggest products to you, remembers your purchases and even notes your dislikes. This is why those us who use Amazon’s services, receive ads and suggestions ad nauseum. Even typing in their search box for what you want, they are already picking categories of products for you to shop. You search on Amazon, and instantly, your Facebook is pitching you an add for a product, you’ve just viewed or searched.

Google vacuums the data from your searches, mail and all of their other office apps, and uses this to digitize your identity. Here’s a quick note from the influence operator world, anyone who understands your identity well, is the person or machine most capable of influencing you. Google is insatiable when it comes to your data. Now to be fair, yes AI and related data collection also has positive benefits, such as increasing search speed or at one time, enhancing your search results. At the moment though, I will no longer trust Google as far as I can throw them.

Throughout my career, I have had to employ research in order to offer military commands my best insights, support my operations and to innovate strategy, techniques and tactics for success. Much of the required research to analyze what are called, TAs or Target Audiences, is found outside of classified systems. This means what is called, “open-source” intelligence which means that you and I could see the same thing if we searched the same thing. Like my peers and colleagues, Google was the preferred or most common search engine on government systems. In the past couple of years, Google’s search engine has been hollowed out and serves only the most minor research.

Anyone who “googles” anything often, will surely have noticed how much is now missing from searches. Since I include a fair amount of history, global national security reporting and other background in my essays, I have discovered just how little is now available from using their search engine. It’s not just me either. Even prominent historical references either are no longer available or only have one reference that tells the story only one way. Understanding history well, requires seeing situations from a variety of perspectives, if you wish to actually understand them.

Now that I have allowed my security clearance to expire, I, like you, now only have access to publicly available information. My writing and most of our lives, depend on access to credible information. This is another problem with Google searches, a search places an AI section at the top of the page and some of the sources their AI provides, are nowhere near credible. How can Americans make sense of our ever-more complicated world without credible sources. Google is censoring us and their motives are to me suspect, other than their greed and fight for power with other big data owners.

Facebook, is infamous for their digital treachery. Their list of losses in court have been staggering. It would take a book to sort through all of them so I’ll just offer a handful of the most prominent.

• Facebook allowed a private tech firm named Cambridge Analytica, owned by Republican super-donor, Robert Mercer to illegally harvest the data of Facebook users for the purpose of personalizing pro-Trump messaging to American voters during the 2016 election period. The data also ended up in the hands of a Russian digital researcher. They settled the case for 725 million to avoid a public trial.

• Facebook was found responsible for exacerbating a 2017 genocide in Myanmar, formerly Burma. They didn’t even follow their own standards and did nothing to mitigate the genocide largely caused by their willingness to support a genocidal military junta.

  

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  "Facebook contributed to a genocide in Myanmar. Scholars, reporters, and United Nations investigators agree that the social media giant played a role in an explosion of ethnic conflict in 2017 that led to the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands Rohingya Muslims in Northern Myanmar.
  
  Riding a wave of liberalization, Facebook entered the country and quickly dominated online spaces, with early the entire internet-connected population of the country using Facebook products. Challenges related to culture and technology meant that the conversations received little moderation. Facebook feeds quickly became populated with hateful speech, including misinformation seeded by the ruling military authority. As a result, Facebook played a critical role in the explosion of violence, especially during the 2017 genocide."
  
  "Facebook’s entry into Myanmar provides a vivid picture of how corporations behave in an absolute lacuna of legal accountability. Facebook knowingly sold a product that tended to exacerbate political divisions and spread misinformation, and did so in a market with significant pre-existing risk factors. It adopted no mechanisms to mitigate those harms, failing even to enforce its own voluntary standards. In so doing, Facebook helped facilitate a genocide."
  
  - Facebook and Genocide: How Facebook contributed to genocide in Myanmar and why it will not be held accountable
  - Daniel Zaleznik
  - Systemic Justice.org

• Just recently, a New Mexico court found META/ FB guilty in a landmark case that will cost them $375 million dollars. They were found guilty of failing to protect children and of not removing clear evidence

  

"SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico jury found Tuesday that social media conglomerate Meta is harmful to children's mental health and in violation of state consumer protection law.

The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial. Jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta — which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — prioritized profits over safety. The jury determined Meta violated parts of the state's Unfair Practices Act on accusations the company hid what it knew about about the dangers of child sexual exploitation on its platforms and impacts on child mental health."

- Jury finds Meta's platforms are harmful to children in 1st wave of social media addiction lawsuits
- PBS
- By Morgan Lee of the Associated Press

Professionally speaking, I find Facebook a cesspool of threats, both digital and as a premier host for scam artists. Just this past week, the iconic Lloyd’s of London, reported that a full two-thirds of their fraud cases, originated on META platforms. META is a parent company of Facebook.

As someone recognized in my field, I know fake accounts, bots, propaganda and so much more regarding threats to Americans via influence. I have repeatedly reported fake accounts on Facebook for ages. Not once have they removed the accounts. They allow pro-MAGA bots to infect most high-traffic threads. Their censorship is in how they moderate anti-MAGA users. They are slightly more subtle than LinkedIn, who not only moderates accounts but allows outside companies to do the dirty work for them.

To be fully transparent, I’ve been at war with LinkedIn for over a decade. The war began as I was retiring from the army and began using social media. Over a few months, I connected with a handful of national security professionals and fought the army of Russian and MAGA trolls spewing the conspiracy theories we’ve all come to know regarding the 2016 election. LinkedIn’s platform became so problematic for US national security that the GOAT of US national security and intelligence reporting, Jeff Stein, then of Newsweek, wrote a full-length expose’ about our efforts titled, “How Russia Is Using LinkedIn as a Tool of War Against Its U.S. Enemies.

Today, LinkedIn is still moderating or allowing external companies to moderate. Again, here is a personal story to make my point. When I first subscribed, I acquired a significant following where my posts would typically range between a couple of thousand views and up to 20 plus thousand. Like here, on Substack I wrote the truth about what was occurring while that LinkedIn was a maze of foreign and MAGA influence. Like the 2016 debacle with the Russian and MAGA trolls, my writing is now fully moderated by a Canadian company called ICUC. They are in turn owned by Dentsu Advertising Services, headquartered in London. Not the US, Canada nor the UK will rein in these corporate hitmen like ICUC who specialize in censorship, via AI. Now corporate oligarchs don’t even do their own dirty work, they outsource to companies like ICUC and this problem is far larger than just an isolated critic or two. This is about protecting their brand from the truth.

Their clients are the who’s who of corporate power and includes companies like Sony, Chevron, Starbucks, Tim Horton’s, Google, etc. These companies pay ICUC to “manage” their online presence. This includes moderation of their critics. Although this is corporate censorship and not illegal, many of the CEOs, owners and board of directors of these behemoth corporations, also fund the current administration’s agendas and their party. They only care about their bottom line, no matter who gets hurt. Such is the state of today’s corporate world. Selling out democracy and its citizens, is the furthest thing from moral.

The last section of this limited overview must focus briefing on the coercion of the media industry by the administration. Their specialty is extortion or buying off potential opponents who in turn, sell all of us out. Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC, Federal Communications Commission has made quite a name for himself by threatening to cancel broadcast licenses for networks in order to stop them from being too critical of the administration’s immoral and illegal agendas. Their Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert events did not pan out well for Carr and the administration, but to this day, they continue operate with timidity when it comes to reporting the truth about Trump and the GOP. In many cases, they won’t even report a story at all, let alone with timidity. In effect, they have been censored.

We’ve all followed the CBS debacle of them bending low enough to kiss the hindquarters of the president. They put Bari Wiess at the head of the news division, destroyed 60 Minutes and all to curry favor with a man who has no loyalty, except apparently to Putin. There will certainly and justifiably be antitrust lawsuits over this one and in fact, it was we the consumers who have filed the first one. That lawsuit is only the beginning for the merger as that several states are lining up to pursue more antitrust lawsuits opposing the merger. Wiess has been credibly accused of demanding dishonest, pro-Trump reporting at 60 Minutes. Yes, you guessed it, more censorship.

Summary

Phew, this was a long one. If you’ve made this far, I’m beyond grateful. Even at this length, we’ve only scratched the surface regarding types of censorship. The bottom-line today is that while we are busy resisting tyranny, the odds are stacked against us and to a large extent, illegally by the Trump/ MAGA regime. We are no longer engaged in a typical back and forth political battle between political parties. We are a diverse mixture of political interests all pulling for one thing, the restoration of a functioning republic where we retain our rights, are not robbed commercially or by a greedy GOP-run government, that is now a far-right extremist movement, rather than a political party. They are funded by we-the-people’s hard-earned taxes dollars and self-serving billionaires that don’t care at all about our system of government.

As we’ve seen throughout this essay, censorship by the government whether first-hand or via proxies, denies us the truth we require and deserve as US citizens. From the White House and the Republican-led Congress, we only get lies and stonewalling. Helluva a way to run a republic. Media is too afraid to challenge the administration and either writes fluff when discussing the Trump crowd or ignores it altogether. The music industry that we depended on in the late sixties and early seventies for protest soundtracks and anthems, are absent from the resistance, with few exceptions.

Their studios are inflicted with the same cowardice as the movie and TV industry. Those old protest songs sustained protests, the movement and are remembered and still played today. Since the majority of studios are in their own self-imposed “witness protection program,” maybe we can repurpose those classics. We need our own powerful resistance soundtrack that inspires and carries our fight on its shoulders. If there are any takers out there, please join us. We’ll sing and march our hearts out for this all-important cause. Even this administration cannot censor the music in our hearts.

The Republicans are wielding powerful weapons of influence to rally their base and suppress ours, most often by censorship directly or via hired thugs like ICUC and Dentsu. The odds are somewhat against us, but we have a secret weapon that the opposition doesn’t. We’re fighting for something real and tangible for ourselves and the generations that follow. The GOP is running on the fumes of conspiracy theories while that their dear leader is losing support by the day. They do not live in the same reality as we do and therefore have lost their moral spine, while that ours has stiffened. Our resilience trumps their lagging enthusiasm for being abused by the person they were conned into believing in.

In military-speak, we have what is called the “will to fight,” a psychological advantage, and we have the numbers to go with the will. We will have to work both harder and smarter, while that we have little to no control over the government that is attempting to steal our future. America has always loved the underdog. It’s part of our identity and it will carry us through in November, regardless of what the spineless Republican Party throws and their oligarchs throw at us. They won’t play fair, or obey the law. We must accept that reality and overcome these obstacles anyway. Morality, numbers and the constitution are on our side. The American people have yet to fail to protect our republic for a quarter of a millennia. We’re not about to start losing now.

My very best for everyone’s weekend, and onward to victory.

Paul

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TAT readers,

If we are to recover a say in the US government, we must see the influence battlefield as it is, not as we’d prefer it. Only then can we plot and execute a successful strategy to begin the accountability due every sitting Republican in our congress. Electoral wins for the resistance have become enormously more challenging due to a long list of Republican tactics, laws and government control. Radical, mid-census gerrymandering, new unconstitutional laws shoved down citizen’s throats in red-states, our extreme right-wing activist SCOTUS, executive branch thuggery at DHS, the FBI and countless local police departments around the nation, a virtual absence of respect for law from the DOJ, censorship etc. etc. etc. are the hallmarks of fascist regimes.

As a Texan, I’ve long been aware that Republican Politics, is a blood- sport. This coming November, we’re all going to experience a historic moment in our extraordinary history that puts our patriotism to the ultimate test, stopping a fascist Republican regime that has all the advantages. Every moment of the current administration has been dedicated to one thing and one thing only, to fully control the US government beyond challenge. It’s all there in Project 2025, published ages before the 2024 election, and for all to see. I believe the American people are too bright to continue buying the GOP’s road apples (midwestern for horse manure), but will that be enough in November? Now, it’s up to all of us true American patriots to put a hard-stop to the overthrow of our republic. If we are to succeed, we must have a strategy or we risk losing the opportunity we have in November.

What follows is my professional analysis of the most critical vulnerabilities within the resistance effort, all of which could be easily rectified if we had leadership. As I have written often, there is no DNC in the game, so I will ignore any potential value they may have, simply because no one has any idea whether they will respond, or not. This raises one more note to regarding this essay. I have written several essays regarding strategy, vulnerabilities and GOP weaknesses, ever since I wrote the Democratic Party’s autopsy just days after the 2024 election. I will not repeat most of what is in those essays but will include links and ideas related to those essays, where I feel they may assist the reader.

Military strategy and planning is not something that can be well explained in an essay, however I can offer you a few uncomplicated insights that should be of value to everyone that is willing to stand up against tyranny. The most valuable insights are about focusing on the GOP’s vulnerabilities and our own. The GOP deficits are to be exploited (attacked) with any and all tactics, while that we protect against them doing the same to us. Our vulnerabilities may seem insurmountable at the moment, but this is far from true. After today’s essay, you will see that our vulnerabilities can be corrected while that the GOP’s are systemic and not fixable at all before the midterms. We have a five month head start if we get busy protecting our vulnerabilities now. We’ll need it because again, the DNC should have begun campaigning for the midterms a year and a half ago. No sense as they say, “in beating a dead horse.”

Strategy development requires as a first step, clearly defining the problem and doing so as succinctly as possible. All army recruits learn something called “land navigation.” It’s a test that challenges you to be able to read a military map, understand topography and be able to chart a course to your intended destination. For many, this is quite challenging but most can learn proficiency by listening and learning. The old adage when plotting a course on your land nav map, is that if you begin your plotted course, even a half a compass degree off, you will be very far off course the further you go. Compass headings radiate outwards like spokes on a bike tire, and the further out they go, the further each point is from the points on either side. This is why we begin our anti-fascist strategy with the clearest and most succinct definition of the problem. We want to hit the target as perfectly as possible.

My definition of the threat from the GOP, is below and despite its dystopian implications, is extremely accurate based on years of observing and researching the GOP’s and related behaviors. As the inimitable Maya Angelou so eloquently warned us, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

My definition of the problem goes something like this; 

“Today’s Republican Party enables the administration, global authoritarians and oligarchs to undermine and dismantle our democracy by wielding the power given to them by, we-the-people, against us. Their purpose is straightforward; unconstrained power for only a handful of men and their merry band of oligarchs. The future they intend for all of us is, a modern form of “serfdom.”

- Cobaugh
- 2026

There are four primary vulnerabilities for the resistance. Of course, nothing stands alone and in this case, each of these primary four have dozens of issues associated with them. This essay is not an attempt to turn it into a book, and so will only address the four most dangerous vulnerabilities. These are also the ones that should they be addressed, could pay off handsomely come November.

1. Outrage isn’t enough. What the hell are we fighting for? We must have a flexible and evolving narrative of what we are fighting for, not a laundry list of outrages.

2. Stop scampering from daily outrage to the next one tomorrow.

   1. Focus on three or four main issues that are not necessarily perceived as progressive issues, every hour of every day around the clock.

      1. The four I recommend at this point in time are;

         1. Inflation

         2. The war with Iran

         3. Epstein, Epstein and more Epstein

         4. Immigration cruelty and lawlessness

3. Take the fight directly to every Republican congressman or Senator’s home district.

4. Turn out the apathetic voters

Now let’s go through the list above. I’ll try and keep the discussion tight and focused. After all, it is the weekend and no one wants to read an entire book with their morning coffee or evening beverage.

Part I: Outrage isn’t enough. What the hell are we fighting for? We must have a flexible and evolving narrative of what we are fighting for, not a laundry list of outrages.

Narratives matter more than all of the propaganda in the entire world. Okay, here’s the most succinct understanding of narrative for the purpose of influencing people.

Despite the tendency of most to talk about narrative as a story, this is not accurate in my profession. Narrative, is how human beings make meaning out of everything they experience throughout their lives. All of our individual experiences are unlike those of any other human being. Everything we experience creates in lay terms, a personalized filter between our ears that converts our experiences into meaning. Narrative Warfare, my core specialty, is a battle for control of the identity of an audience. Propaganda, fake news, conspiracy theories, historical revisionism and even truth, are all weapons in the battle for our identities.

For example, someone born and raised in Boston, will nearly always, have a narrative filter that sees New York sports teams as the enemy or in kinder terms, a spirited rivalry. No amount of statistics or game replays will convince them of anything positive about NY teams. Those fans have been indoctrinated over the course of their lives to only see a sporting event in terms of enemy vs. friendly. Even identical twins grow to be unique individuals, even though they have the same DNA. From the time they are toddlers, they experience things differently and therefore, grow different identities. They may be very similar, but their uniqueness is absolute. Once people have grown into a specific identity, it often takes decades it is very difficult to dislodge. Until then, whatever their identity becomes, makes roughly 90% of their decisions subconsciously.

This is why FOX News watchers will never see, read or hear things as we do. Their identity has been built by over thirty years of conditioning them to extreme-right-wing beliefs, even though they see themselves as patriots. Nothing will change them at this point. That is the reality that we must all accept. The identity of the person we knew before FOX News, in a matter of speaking, no longer exists as we knew them prior to their FOX addiction. Barring anything traumatic, the person you knew, may never return to their original self. Instead of fighting this, just accept it and focus your energy elsewhere.

Controlling the narrative of a brainwashed audience, is like hitching a team of horses to pull a wagon. The slightest cue you give them while driving the team, will be heeded, if they are well and regularly trained. Once a person identifies with a narrative, their actions become predictable and those actions simply become muscle memory, after decades of conditioning. Those still voting Republican are brainwashed and can be predictably triggered to do or believe whatever they are told. This is why the GOP has a dishonest narrative for everything; immigration, patriotism, the constitution, the economy, etc. Those narratives are how they control their audiences. The resistance, is still yet to form their first narrative. Movements require narratives that express the meaning of their cause. We are fighting blind and are unarmed on the narrative battlefield. A good narrative becomes the glue that holds a cause together and inspires its members to action.

We must create a narrative for every issue we’re fighting and those narratives must be relatable to our overarching narrative.

Part II: Stop scampering from daily outrage to the next one tomorrow.

Listen guys, I watch social media closely. I look for trends and how others see those trends. The administration and the GOP are leading the resistance around like a little dog on a leash. They do this easily by creating a daily outrage or two. When they do, resistance folks on social media scamper from one outrage to the next, like those adorable little Minions that our children and grandchildren love so much. The only problem for us not living in cartoon world is that, if we spend all of our time scurrying from one issue to another, we don’t focus on the very serious vulnerabilities that the Republicans have perilously stumbled into. I’m not suggesting that we ignore the GOP’s cruelty, corruption and lawlessness, but we must maintain massive pressure on their vulnerabilities. That’s how we get media to hear us instead of the opposition.

The resistance needs media support and under the current conditions, most mainstream media is cowering under their desks hoping that the White House won’t threaten them again. As they hide, they remove and minimize the content that would truthfully damage this administration and the GOP. In military terms, I’m asking you to instead of scampering about, to “concentrate our forces” on a handful of the GOP’s most vulnerable issues. Concentration of forces simply means to mass your troops and resources at a vulnerability of your adversary. In the simplest of terms, by running towards every daily outrage, we are just using up our time, energy and resources in a manner that doesn’t make a big enough noise to garner the attention of the mainstream press. We need coverage and not just the reactive kind. In Narrative Warfare, “he who goes first, wins.” We are exclusively reactive and this will cost us the midterms if it continues.

Part III: Take the fight directly to every Republican congressman or Senator’s home district.

Last July, I wrote a five-part series that was also a “how-to guide to defeating the current regime. I covered this topic in-depth throughout the series and so, will not rehash those points here. Here at this embedded link you can reach the last part of the series, an overview, which also includes links to the five part series.

The reasons for taking the fight to the Republican’s home districts is pure common-sense. In a fair election, the Republicans are so deep in the polling that they would certainly lose the House of Representatives. The Senate may hold for them but it is not a certainty either. They are hiding from their constituents and their social media game is not working anywhere close to where it has been the past decade of Trumpism. For example, I often take the pulse of how they are doing from Facebook and other social media platforms. GOP representatives and Senators are avoiding any controversial posts, preferring fluff photo-ops with anyone they can find that will agree to be in their photo-op. Even then, roughly 80% of the time the comment sections are filled with powerful derision from their constituents and those who are in other districts.

So in this logic train, if the GOP elected politicians are unpopular, that is a key vulnerability. It won’t be helpful though if we don’t take advantage of that vulnerability. The logic says to hit them hard on all of their social media with comments about Epstein, the war and especially inflation. This tactic puts your comments between the congressman or woman and their constituents. It’s a way of forcing their constituents to see how deeply and pervasively they are disliked. No one wants to back a corrupt politician, especially if others can see their name and face. The longtime GOP diehards that continue to vote for Trump, will not abandon the GOP, but that leaves everyone else to weigh your comments for truth and reason. This is one way to draw independent voters to our side and off their couches. There are roughly 30% of Republican voters that will never acknowledge truth. That leaves 70% of voters that are potential allies.

Yes, when you look at your social media feeds, take a moment to leave a short negative comment that is true. At least place one of those little laughing or angry emojis on their posts. One warning though… do not make comments that reflect partisanship. “Go blue” or “blue wave” will destroy any progress you make. America is so very fed up with partisanship. This is why we should avoid at all possible the mention of anything that wreaks of left/right, Dem/ Republican or conservative vs. liberal. After all, it’s not just Democrats that are furious with the regime and their willfully dishonest supporters. The resistance should always be branded as a movement of patriotic Americans defending our style of government and the liberty it provides, not a right vs. left partisan battle.

Part IV: Turn out the apathetic voters

I won’t waste too much time on this section because I have already partially addressed this earlier. Winning in November is a numbers game. Before the radical gerrymandering war begun by a terrified Trump and Republican Party, our battle was far more promising. We must now make up for any potential losses in the gerrymandered states. This means that we must try even harder and work smarter. As mentioned, there are only roughly 30% of hardcore Republican voters. They are too brainwashed to be reached so don’t waste too much effort on them. Our vulnerabilities are apathy and an absence of a resistance narrative. Among the roughly 30-35% of committed voters within the resistance there is indeed strength, but the question remains, how do we get voters off the couch to vote for the resistance, when the majority of them are fed up with our overly corrupt political system in general? This must be figured out quickly. One thing that would be of assistance is an overarching narrative that tells voters what our agenda is.

Summary

Today’s essay intended to give everyone an overview of our current situation and offers some recommendations to capitalize on the overwhelming unpopularity of this administration. Those who ignore such opportunities will always lose to those who may be horrible but have a plan. For decades, the GOP has built a massive and powerful media machine to “sell” their nonsense. They are good at this and have the money from their selfish oligarchy to fund unlimited media blitzes. This is an obstacle although not an insurmountable one. Remember, the GOP is the minority party, even though they currently control our entire government. I cannot at this time foresee this GOP converting independents and apathetic voters. They are that unpopular. We must act now though, if we are to make any real progress before the midterms.

Professionally, I have never worked on a political campaign, but I do know influence and have written, executed and assessed my own successful campaigns in my capacity within the military and extended national security community. What I conveyed in this piece, are the basics of any campaigning, regardless of its intentions. We are under assault every single day by the Republican media monstrosity and there is almost nothing of substance of quantity coming from our side. What I’m offering here are the basics that we can all contribute to since the DNC went into the Witness Protection Program. We can do this, and for our children and grandchildren’s sake, we must.

Onward,

Paul

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I’m so sorry. I just sent out today’s essay and somehow, I accidently deleted it. Some of you may have received it but now I am trying to find a way to recover it. If I don’t, that knocking sound will be me knocking my head against the door jamb!

Dear TAT readers,

Today I want to share some historical knowledge about the Fourth of July, offering a short history lesson that explains why we resist oppression and tyranny with such righteous anger. I suspect many don’t know all of today’s historical stories. All I can say is that all of them inspire me and I hope they will do the same for all of you. As I noted in my last essay about why I refuse to celebrate the buffoonish administration’s version of this auspicious holiday, I’m a true believer in our system of government, not for partisanship, but because I believe deeply in our founding principles, mangled so heinously by the current SCOTUS and of course, the administration dismantling our republic. One of today’s stories about the fourth, seems almost mystically preordained by the very “creator,” spoken of by Jefferson in our founding declaration.

Longtime readers know that I have a deep love of history and especially regarding our founders, their courage and their brilliant progressive (for the time) ideals that populate our constitution and its later amendments. Although I have an undergrad degree in history and that I absorbed so much personal mentoring by my history and government teacher father, I don’t consider myself a true historian, so much as a well-informed and devoted student of history. Today I will share a couple of our Fourth of July stories that demonstrate how central that this date is to how we identify ourselves as Americans. I hope you will find this interesting and helpful in your resistance to the tyranny of the ruling Republican Party’s descent into fascism, autocracy, dictatorship etc. The truth is, this administration fits into many such categories, so please feel free to just insert the word of your choice.

Onward

Introduction

It would acutely disrespectful not to first acknowledge that the signing of our Declaration of Independence was arguably, the first official step in becoming the world’s longest surviving constitutional republic. That doesn’t mean that there were not other forms of democracy prior, such as Greece and Rome during ancient periods. It is no coincidence that the “father of our constitution,” and fourth president, James Madison intensely studied such forms from ancient Greece forward. He did so for primarily one reason and that was to find out both both the benefits and detriments to the idea of what was often labeled, “republicanism,” in the colonial era. First, a couple of basics about the founding of our system of governance.

Madison, recognized as an elite scholar on politics and representative government, prepared for the convention to ratify our constitution by analyzing similar representative governments from ancient Greece until the colonial era. His “Notes on Ancient and Modern Confederacies” became the written version of his analysis and can still be read today in the Library of Congress. He paid to print his analysis in a handful of remarkable little books of 39 pages, printed to fit into the pocket of his fellow delegates for the purpose of discussion and debate at the convention. His stamp more than any other scholar, is on our constitution.

"Winston Churchill once said that a man has to choose whether to nail his life to the cross of thought or the cross of action. But Churchill managed to do both and to do them well, although it is surely the case that we remember him more for his statesmanship. Like Churchill, James Madison was both a statesman and a scholar, as William Pierce of Georgia noted in his character sketch of “Mr. Maddison” at the Constitutional Convention. Americans are more aware of Madison as the fourth President of the United States than they are of his scholarly writings. I think, though, that it was in the realm of ideas rather than practical political jockeying that Madison most excelled and found his vocation. He was a good but, honestly, not great politician. While he had a
natural aptitude for legislative committee work, he was a poor orator. He was,
however, an exceptional scholar of politics and political philosophy and, in
particular, a brilliant pioneer in the study of republican government in the
modern world. The following pages are meant to acquaint readers and citizens with Madison’s discoveries and groundbreaking ideas as he engaged in a study of ancient and modern republicanism. Readers are also invited to experience with Madison the excitement he felt when he believed he had discovered the republic “for which philosophy has been searching, and humanity been sighing, from the most remote ages.”1.”

- The Mind of James Madison: The Legacy of Classical Republicanism
- Cambridge University Press, 978-1-107-02947-7 
- Colleen A. Sheehan

Without our founders’ deep legal scholarship and progressive political philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, championed by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and their esteemed colleagues in the Committee of Five, our Declaration of Independence could have foretold a very different opening act for America. Our Declaration of Independence outlines our political philosophy and our constitution, codifies the application of that philosophy.

Now, finally to the stories I promised. You will find in each, a deep and passionate love of our fledgling government, the courage to breath life into it and through the past 250 years, the willingness of all Americans, to defend it. Each story informs us of just who we are as Americans, be it the structure of the republic or in the philosophy of our founders. In our Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments to our constitution, and especially within the legal parameters of our First Amendment, we now have a clear lens to see how many of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms are being slaughtered by the administration and an aberrant, corrupt and shameless Supreme Court. I take a great deal of comfort in and acquire all the resilience I require to defend what over 1.3 million Americans died defending, from what we celebrate during our upcoming holiday. All I have known throughout my life, especially from my Midwestern roots, have been equally inspired… until the Trump/ MAGA GOP era. It’s up to us to set this right.

Our first celebration of the Fourth

Massachusetts, gave us our first day to celebrate, exactly two years prior to the signing of the Declaration. In Worcester, Ma, some of our earliest and most fervent patriots declared on July 4th, 1774 that their political club would establish rules regarding the arming of patriots and their readiness to fight Britain, should the relationship between the colonies and Britain come to war. This set off similar requirements across Massachusetts and not a minute too soon. Nine months later and only a little over 40 miles NW of Worcester, Britain marched on Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775, where the “shot heard round the world” was fired on a small bridge on the edge of Lexington at the advancing 7-8 hundred advancing British troops. The war that followed changed US and global history forever.

"On July 4, 1774, exactly two years before the United States declared independence, a patriotic club in Worcester, Massachusetts, decided that each member should have in the ready two pounds of gunpowder and twelve flints. With the Massachusetts Government Act, Parliament had just revoked key provisions of the colony’s provincial charter (like a constitution), and the people of Worcester vowed they were ready to fight to protect their political rights. Two months later 4,622 militiamen—half the adult population of this rural county—rode or walked for as many as fifty miles to gather along Worcester’s Main Street and shut down the governmental machinery at the local level. The show of force was so overwhelming that the British military commander in Boston did not dare send in his troops.

Similar events were staged in other county seats. In Plymouth, some 4,000 patriots were so excited after they closed down the court that they tried to move Plymouth Rock up to the courthouse, but that proved more difficult than unseating government officials. So ended British rule in all of Massachusetts outside of Boston. Then on October 4, 1774, twenty-one months before the Declaration of Independence, the people of Worcester said it was time to start a new government from scratch. The revolution had begun."

- The War for Independence
- Gilder Lehrman Institute (GLI) of American History
- by Ray Raphael

The near mystical story of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

Adams and Jefferson had been at the core of our fight for independence from the very beginning of the colonies’ fervor for independence. Both were deeply educated in the classics and the law, men of note within their own circles and ardently convinced that we had reached the point that independence from Britain was the only way forward for the colonies. Having met in the Continental Congress in 1775, they became fast friends and co-conspirators in every aspect of the soon to occur war with Britain. In most reading, it is understood that Adams was the one who selected Jefferson to be the primary drafter of the Declaration of Independence.

They had experienced every bit of our pursuit of independence together, whether at home or during the long times they spent abroad as US Ambassadors to England and France. Post war, Washington served two terms as our first president with Adams following him for one term until the onset of the election of 1800. It is often termed the “dirtiest election” in US history. Adams and Jefferson battled for the White House for a second time. Jefferson won the election but the damage was done. They lost each other as best friends over the vitriol in the campaign and over political appointments made by Adams before leaving office. They would not speak for another 12 years.

Another prominent founder, Dr. Benjamin Rush and a friend to both Adams and Jefferson, felt that after Jefferson left office after a second term, that it had been far too long for these dear friends who’d traveled the long and arduous road to independence together, to no longer speak or write. It took the good Doctor well over a year to manage a rekindling of their dearly missed and mourned correspondence. That correspondence reignited the deep and abiding friendship they’d shared through thick and thin. They would go on to correspond regularly until the day they died, and this is the pseudo mystical part. They both died within hours of each other on the Fourth of July, 1826, exactly fifty years to the day, since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

"The news of Adams’s death reached Boston by the end of the day. The Columbian Centinel (Boston, MA) was aligned with Federalist sentiment in the Federalist Era and used mourning bars, large dark lines to signify mourning for former president Adams in its July 8, 1826 edition. Mourning bars have been used by newspaper publishers as early as the 17th century to communicate to readers that someone has died. According to newspaper reports, Adams’s last words were, “Jefferson still lives.” In the course of a few days, news of Jefferson’s death arrived from Virginia and the next issue of the Columbian Sentinel included the headline, “Another GREAT MAN is No More! and our columns again are shrowed in respectful mourning.”

- Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on July 4th
- Library of Congress
- Amber Paranick
- July 6th, 2022

President James Monroe follows Adams and Jefferson, dying on July 4th, 1831

Three of our founders who became president died on the fourth of July. President Monroe, now 73 and long reported ill, passed away at his son-in-law’s home in NYC, five years to the day after Adams and Jefferson.

Finally, the miracle of July 4th, 1863

It was the middle of our Civil War, things had been going poorly for the Union Army and Robert E. Lee had again ventured north of the Mason-Dixon line again and were rummaging through southeastern Pennsylvania for supplies, harassing Union political activities and looking to defeat the Army of the Potomac in a large, decisive battle. Both armies met at Gettysburg and from July 1st through July 4th were engaged in the largest battle of the war. President Lincoln, deeply concerned over Union leadership had already fired four commanding generals before handing command to Meade, three days before Gettysburg. As the news began filtering into Washington about the battle, Lincoln sat in the Telegraph Office along with senior staff and some cabinet members, hoping against previous experiences, that they would finally achieve a decisive major victory over Confederate forces, which would have been a first for the Union at this stage of the war.

Casualties were mounting, he had deep anxiety regarding his senior military leadership and as if things couldn’t get worse, the First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, was involved in a carriage accident the second day of the battle. The carriage she had been riding in had been sabotaged and was seen as an assassination attempt on the President, who’d been in the carriage earlier. Lincoln suffered his whole life from depression and the way the war was going, was concerned that Gettysburg would fail to give him the decisive win over Robert E. Lee he needed militarily and politically. If only he could have known that by the end of the 4th of July, his luck would reverse itself in an extraordinary way.

By the end of the day promising news was beginning to trickle in over the telegraph wires and hinting at a Union victory. By the morning of the 4th, he knew for sure that he finally had his big, decisive win over Lee. As it turns out, this wasn’t the only big news of the day. Grant, who Lincoln would make the commander of all Union Forces in a few more weeks, added another major victory at Vicksburg on the Mississippi river. July fourth, 1863 would be the turning point of the war. Despite another nearly two years of war, the Southern war effort had peaked and would never recover as a peer threat to Union forces.

Okay, that’s enough history for one essay and unless you’re as passionate about it as I am, it may feel a bit like an old history class from high school or undergrad studies. For me, it is not the names and dates but the people in our history that inspires me. Like our founders, we live in dangerous times. To win our freedom, we took on an oppressive king, much as we must do now with the current administration and their corrupt and anti-American political party. During the Civil War, we fought the Confederacy who espoused very similar ideology to what today’s Republicans spew. White Christian Nationalism, the oligarchy of the cotton and slave trade and who could see the Civil War as anything but political violence against our republic. MAGA is nothing new. It’s the same ole’ racism, greed and political violence we saw during the Civil War. The only difference today is that it is all of us that are intended to become slaves to modern oligarchy.

As I wrote last week regarding Trump’s obscene America 250 party, I will not celebrate the treasonous Republican way. I will celebrate those who forged a powerful nation, originally intended to further the liberty and rights of the masses. I will honor the men and women who had not only the vision, but the courage to breathe life into our fledgling nation, built on the premise of honoring everyone’s “inalienable human rights.” Words can be magical and when I read our history, I may mourn our historical errors like slavery and the genocide of our indigenous tribes but, will hold that pain in one hand while weighing what we’ve contributed to the world in the other.

This administration and the GOP have similar intentions for us as the historical pain I hold in one hand. That is not the end of the story though. From the very beginning, the power has been in the hands of we-the-people and there is far more good in America than bad. America can “walk and chew gum at the same time though.” We can address our past errors in one hand while reforging the American dream with the other.

Publius Redux

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Dear TAT readers,

The subject of today’s short essay has been weighing on my mind for months. Until we vanquish this corrupt and treasonous administration, restore rule of law, honor the constitution and recover our rights, there is nothing to celebrate. Yes, it was very difficult to write those first two sentences. I and a couple hundred million Americans are what in my youth, were called true patriots, left, right or otherwise. We are the resistance. Our constitutional republic, born of elite, progressive values (for the time) has been hijacked by an egomaniac, oligarchy, a bought and paid for SCOTUS, all of which are enabled by a spineless and corrupt Republican Party in the Trump era.

Today’s GOP has taken America so far from our founding values, as to make our formerly esteemed American democracy, into nothing more than a blurb in world history books, or at least until the GOP rewrites them too. Mom was a lifelong Republican and Dad the same type of Democrat. They both voted across party lines throughout my life, when facts and wisdom told them to. Dad began his career teaching history and government and had a large library of academic material at home in his office. I sat by those books looking at pictures until I could read. Thus began an insatiable life of fascination with our brilliant founders, their expansively progressive ideas and their heroic courage breathing life into a nation unlike anyone had seen before. My parents and our founders are now rolling in their graves.

America didn’t always live up to our founding values but over the arc of history, has mostly moved far closer to them. Of course, our Civil War was really the war to maintain our union and to hold those founding values higher than at any time prior. We fought and won the war to put our feet back onto the path that those extraordinary founders foresaw for us. We have fought many wars since and our nation held together, or at least until the Republican Party during the Newt Gingrich era sold their souls and chose a path of aggressive oligarchy, greed, white Christian Nationalism, and the scorched earth GOP politics of the late 70s and 80s. Today’s GOP is now a far-right extremist movement masquerading as a political party. They are now committed to dismantling the very American democracy that so many real patriots died protecting. We now live in an autocracy that our founders would have gone to war with, if they were alive today.

Corruption has no party and at times, Democratic corruption has been a wound to our democracy as well, but never remotely close to what we experience today. Today’s GOP doesn’t just want corruption, they want unbridled power and for the most immoral of purposes. Their fake patriotism rings not only hollow, but is an outright lie. Republican voters are addicted to the culture wars cultivated by the GOP and their cooperation with Russian propaganda. Because they have been conned by the combination of GOP and foreign influence operations, we can no longer reach them whether they are family, friends, co-workers or those in our communities. In the meantime, the DNC has become a hapless band of political dinosaurs, incapable of campaigning or even standing up for our national principles.

It’s as if the DNC is trying to lose the midterms. Only last week they released their long-awaited “autopsy” detailing why they lost the last election. It wasn’t just the last one either. I wrote my own DNC autopsy here on Substack, on November 12th, 2024, just one week after the disastrous election. Now, with American democracy on the executioner’s scaffolding and with only 6 months until one of the most consequential elections in US history, the DNC is absent from the electoral battlefield entirely. Most campaigns begin shortly after the last election and the DNC has been AWOL now for a year and a half. Between the gross incompetence of the DNC and the selling out of America by the GOP, my normal optimism is being gravely challenged. Where is the America I was raised to believe in?

My life and my family’s lives have been primarily one of service to the greater good. It’s simply family tradition. My uncles served during WWII, both of my veteran parents served during the Korean War and my cousins during Vietnam. Like my father before me, I enlisted in the Army at 17 in 1974, roughly a year before the infamous scenes of US troops pulling out of Saigon. When I returned to the Army 26 years later and shortly after the war on terror began, I served in Iraq, Afghanistan and a few other delicate places in the world. My son like me and my father both, enlisted in the Navy at 17 and we both served in the Middle East at the same time during one of our combat deployments. We are true believers in America. It’s not a matter of politics either. We serve because we don’t say “no” when the nation calls, whether in uniform or otherwise. We are not alone. There are millions of other American families that have answered the call too. That’s the America that I grew up believing in.

Our long-planned national celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of our Declaration of Independence from Britain is moot to me. We cannot celebrate something that no longer exists. We may still have the same name, but there is so little left of our nation and its principles, I have no idea what anyone will be celebrating. I doubt that I am not the only one that feels this way. I will dedicate our Fourth of July holiday to efforts to recover the America we all once believed in, hoping that we can resuscitate Lady Liberty. I will look for ways to impact the wallets of the shameful oligarchs who fund today’s republican party. I will also use the time to support candidates that are willing to take on every single republican in office. Not one of them is worthy of the title “congressman.” At every turn they have given the Executive Branch, every power once reserved for the Legislative Branch. I will support any effort to remove all six far-right Supreme Court Justices who daily abuse their power and privilege. My celebration will be in support of those risking everything to restore our nation.

Sure, I will miss family events but there’s work to be done. I also don’t wish to ruin family events that include those that have put party over country, vote against their own self-interests and all the while claiming to be good “conservatives.” They are not conservatives for anyone who has ever used a dictionary or encyclopedia. Those who’ve voted 2 or 3 times for Trump and his party are all… far-right extremists embracing and cheering on pedophilia, open and excessive corruption, the GOP’s predilection for ignoring any law that serves their purpose and selling our national security to Russia and China. They cheer wars without purpose and yet, will still go to events on Memorial Day weekend proclaiming their devotion and patriotism. What a pile of road apples (country talk for horses$#t). As they fawn over their dear leader, they are concurrently supporting the wars for oil and power that only add more of those mournful white headstones to our national cemetery.

The U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission formed in 2016 and headed by Presidents Barak Obama and George W. Bush have been working for a decade to create this celebration. While that I am deeply grateful for these two presidents from different parties taking on this project, nothing now is the same as in 2016.

America250?

"Comprising the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, established by Congress in 2016, and America250.org, Inc., the nonprofit supporting organization to the Commission, America250 is a nonpartisan initiative working to engage every American in commemorating the 250th anniversary of our country. This multi-year effort, from now through July 4, 2026, is an opportunity to pause and reflect on our nation’s past, honor the contributions of all Americans, and look ahead toward the future we want to create for the next generation and beyond.

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Former First Ladies Laura Bush and Michelle Obama serve as Honorary National Co-Chairs. The effort is supported by a bipartisan Congressional Caucus of more than 350 members — the largest caucus in U.S. history."

- America 250

I hold no ill-will to those who choose to celebrate. After all, we are the world’s longest surviving representative government, or at least we were until the Trump era. As mentioned, my celebration will be in employing my energy to the restoration of the republic. After Trump’s birthday military parade from last June, I don’t think I could bear watching another poorly attended and humiliating debacle where Republicans mouth lies about their poisonous cocktail of White Christian Nationalism and fake patriotism. I’ve lost any pretense of pretending to be nice when discussing today’s Republicans. Every last one of them that still support the GOP are now officially “MAGA Republicans.” Maybe if the situation were less dangerous to our national security, I could still smile and be “nice,” but after more than a decade of having lies, half-truths and full-blown conspiracy theories shoved down my throat, my patience is no longer up to par.

We must remember that it’s not just the GOP and their oligarchs that put our republic on life-support. Today’s cowardly media are serving their bottom lines and don’t give a damn about democracy. Some of the most high-profile media sellouts are CBS, Disney, Reuters, the BBC, Paramount, Nexstar, Sinclair etc. etc. etc. There is also a special place in hell for Rupert Murdoch and his treasonous FOX News empire, along with the other main far-right extremist channels like Newsmax, Breitbart, OAN etc. Most entertainers have gone silent too, especially the music industry with but a few exceptions like Bruce Springsteen. The music industry is largely as corrupt and cowardly as most mainstream media outlets. The only bright spot from a genre perspective have been America’s comedians who I liken in the Trump era, to knights on horseback racing to the rescue and demonstrating brilliant and courageous leadership. Maybe on the Fourth of July and after a day of work supporting the resistance, I will binge on Colbert, John Stewart, the Jimmy’s, Seth Meyers and so on. I don’t believe that I will be alone.

I will not belabor these personal thoughts of mine. Sometimes less said is better. Every honest American knows the score. We are surrounded by an odd combination of Americans in the Trump era. Corrupt and selfish oligarchs, true patriots in the resistance, of all political stripes, Cowards like the media, news, music industry etc., schoolyard bullies which pertains to all Republicans since 2024, courageous resistance figures, a traitorous administration, voters hiding out afraid of their own shadow and an army of partisan pundits of whom less than half have any real knowledge about what they babble about and of course, Republican voters who are ashamed to admit they were conned or are too brainwashed to recognize reality. We have only six months to prepare for the biggest election since 1860.

Those of us willing to fight for what is rightfully and constitutionally ours, will unfortunately have to do our job and the jobs of all the rest. Republicans are no longer worth any effort. As I have explained about my years in counterterrorism, once humans reach a level of radicalization such as today’s GOP, they are mostly psychologically incapable of readjusting to reality. This means that even family members will be tragically lost to most of us. Friends and co-workers the same. We must now focus on who we can convince to join in the fight to restore our system of government to the luster our founders gifted us in 1776. It is a cause that 1.3 million Americans have died for since our founding. This is the price that liberty often requires. Some of those 1.3 million are my friends and colleagues. Last weekend’s Memorial Day weekend, refreshed my commitment to not dishonor their sacrifices. It may not be a civil war yet, but if more of us don’t pitch in, the risk becomes evermore present.

Our job, is to see to it that we hand off to our children and grandchildren, a nation that can see another 250 years of American democracy.

Onward America

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TAT readers,

This evening while glancing through social media, I came across the account of an officer I had served with during one of my Afghanistan deployments. He had posted three photos of soldiers who we memorialize today. I knew two of these extraordinary young soldiers, one male and the other female. It’s been fourteen years since the combat operation that took both of their lives. Both knew the risks of not only their chosen vocation, but voluntarily stepped forward into the ranks of a command often referred to as, “the tip of the spear,” or the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). America loses something special with the loss of any of our troops, but these two were USSOCOM family whom I had served alongside deployed, albeit one only briefly.

This holiday, typically the official beginning of summer vacation, is more solemn for family, friends, communities and those of us who were the brothers and sisters-in-arms of those we honor. To be frank, strong and often painful emotions accompany that solemnity. Uniformly crisp white stones stretching across countless acres of our many national cemeteries, are so plentiful as appear as wheat on America’s Great Plains. Every stone marks the final resting place of someone who has sworn that sacred oath of service, to protect and defend our constitution. The stones above those lost during combat operations, are the ones we honor today and then on Veteran’s Day, we honor every single stone.

There is an aurora of honor and dignity that hangs thickly in the air, as one walks the endless rows of stones. Here at the national cemetery in San Antonio, I always find my way to my veteran parents’ stones, as well as the stone of the mother, of a close friend. There’s a poignant semblance of peace as one sits in the perfectly maintained grass while musing through old memories, both good and less so. Remembering those who’ve borne the battle, is how a nation heals from the losses incurred to defend and sustain our republic.

Those we honor every Memorial Day, gave their full measure of devotion in service to not only our nation but its founding principles as well. In the US military, officer and enlisted both swear to “protect and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.” We cannot honor their sacrifice fully, if we do not honor the principles they perished defending. We live at a point in our history where the very constitution that we swear to defend on the battlefield, is currently being trampled at home. The least that we can do for the legacy of those fallen in battle, is to honor our heroes and heroines by ensuring that we come together and protect the constitution they sacrificed their futures for.

I wish everyone both a thoughtful and enjoyable holiday weekend.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Well, I’ve begun two different essays this week, but with being a bit under the weather, this is the first to be finished. Today’s essay is not about panic or fear-mongering, but a simple question based on years of my research, and professional threat analysis. A simple history book could regurgitate the facts of America’s collapse into a nation that doesn’t give a damn about our constitution, laws, courts, history etc., etc., etc., but the facts alone, are not persuasive when considering a way forward. Today’s narrative is intended to persuade readers to begin considering that a revolution may be the only way to restore our constitutional republic.

Today’s essay, is the narrative of why it’s now time to prepare for a revolution as the only mechanism capable of restoring what the current regime has and will continue stealing from us. I have made my decision, and it’s to fight for what 250 years of Americans have protected with their lives. Okay, I get it, this sounds terrifying at first glance but don’t jump to conclusions, because not all revolutions are violent or represented by civil war. Sometimes revolutions are every bit as peaceful as they are dynamic. For example, the 1980-1989 Solidarity Movement lead by Polish worker, Lech Walesa, undid much of Soviet oppression until the Soviet Union utterly collapsed. The 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia overturned their Soviet-sponsored communist government, without firing a shot. The examples of peaceful revolution throughout history are inspiring, to say the least.

Of course, we tend to remember violent revolutions somehow more easily. Our War for Independence from Britain and the French Revolution are bold examples and nothing that we wish to pursue… unless we are forced to defend ourselves from our current Republican police state. Violence is not out of the question for us and whichever way we pursue our revolt, we have reached the point where if we are to survive based on our founding principles, revolution is an option now on the table. Please read that again… “revolution is on the table.” The only questions remaining is what form it will take and how many Americans will support it.

Onward

First I will address the “why now” question for our uprising. It’s actually the easiest point to make in this essay and comes down to just a couple of primary points.

1. America is its people and our constitution. Our people are now oppressed severely and all because to the administration and the Republican Party, it no longer matters.

   1. Our SCOTUS has made a mockery of our legal system by interpreting our constitution in a manner that twist its words into a pretzel, in order to justify illegality for autocrats and oligarchs. The ancient phrase dating back to the birth of democracy in ancient Greece, “we are all equal before the law” has become a sad joke after Chief Justice John Roberts’ “immunity” decision regarding Trump’s illegal activities.

   2. The Trump regime and again… the Republican Party breaks the law on a daily basis and there are zero repercussions. Murders of legally protesting US citizens by ICE, go unpunished and uninvestigated. Immigrants both legal and undocumented, are abused in the most horrific manner while that protesters exercising their constitutional rights are arrested and abused by thuggery, not law enforcement.

      

2. Republican voters will not abandon Trump or their party because they are in lay terms, brainwashed. For over thirty years, incremental conditioning by FOX News, now in conjunction with a whole right-wing extremist media empire, have programmed their audiences with a whole new political identity, that can easily be controlled.

   1. For a hundred years or so, first the Bolsheviks, followed by the Soviet Union and now Putin’s Russia have deployed influence operations against the US and Europe. Those operations came to be called Active Measures by the Soviets, and continue to this day as a primary weapon of Russia. The key objective of Active Measures is to achieve, reflexive control over their target audiences. All this means is that our adversaries can sit in Moscow and punch buttons and keys, that will trigger well-conditioned audiences to predictably say, do or think whatever they have been programmed by the conditioning, to do.

      

   2. To add to this, the Republican Party has been taking lessons from the Russians for a couple of decades. They have cooperated against you and I successfully, beginning with the nonsense about president Obama’s birth certificate. Onto this lunacy, they have built an entire library of conspiracy theories that our Republican family, friends, neighbors and coworkers have internalized. The triggers built into Republicans and echoed by a spineless media environment, keep them brainwashed beyond recovery.

      1. In my long career in CT/ Counterterrorism, I became quite familiar with so-called “deradicalization” programs, not just in the US. I mean no disrespect to the CVE (countering violent extremism) community at large, however success rates are murky at best and often written in narrative rather than producing quantitative data. My professional opinion is that once an individual passes a certain threshold in their radicalization, they are extremely difficult to deradicalize fully or to the point that they do not consistently remain threats.

         

         This matters here because extremism is a universal threat with varying ideologies. Today’s GOP platform as illustrated by their actions, is easily defined as an extremist threat to our republic. The overwhelming majority of Trump-era Republicans will largely remain extremist in their thinking and continue to vote for GOP violent extremism. There is no foundational evidence that they will recover any more than the countless individuals who’ve been through deradicalization programs.

   

3. It’s quite clear that we have little organized leadership within the resistance, that strategizes, plans and has successful operational experience under their belt. It sure as hell isn’t the DNC. They are already months behind in operations for the midterms and with no discernable plan. We must do this ourselves.

4. The GOP and their administration are already well into disrupting the midterm elections via a wide variety of methods. If we do not stop them now and especially in November, our odds of success drop dramatically. I will add that all of the tweets, posts, news articles and pundits claiming that scores of Republican voters are abandoning ship, are far closer to cheerleading than fact. Republicans, despite a very poor economy, war, loss of healthcare and social safety net programs, a majority of GOP voters still hold favorable opinions of their dear leader and the GOP’s anti-American ideology. This tells us that all of the facts and attacks we are making against this regime, are not doing us enough good. So long as we are reactively protesting the GOP’s daily attacks on us, we are not spending time employing an offensive strategy, as if we had one. We must go on the offensive with our own narratives instead of just scampering from one heinous Trumpian act to another.

   

The bottom line to this section is that Republicans will still vote Republican, because they are brainwashed. We will not change their minds. Our effort must be focused on turning out the apathetic or frightened voters. Only enormous hordes of anti-GOP voters will get the job done. Hungary’s historically high voter turnout, is what turned the tide for the Hungarians in freeing themselves from 16 years of the pro-Putin, Orban’ administration. Turning out massive numbers of voters would do the same for us here in the US.

Secondly, Trump, his voters, his party machine and their oligarchical billionaires have most of the conventional cards for success in an election. They have the money, power, courts, congress, federal law enforcement and the ability to censor much of our dissent. What they don’t have, are the numbers, the intense frustration of honest American voters and true patriotism.

The FOX News crowd has been dining exclusively on historical revisionism for over three decades. The GOP voting base is ignorant of not only our history, but what’s in our constitution. They no longer even care if their precious Republican party is violating the constitution or regularly breaking laws. They have basically built their beliefs on thin ice, while that the resistance has the full weight of reality, knowledge, our history and what it means to be an American as the thick, hard-frozen ice that will support us on our patriotic path. This is our one advantage and its a big one, as long as we can begin coordinating our plans and infusing apathetic voters with our will to restore our republic.

With all of the tools at the GOP’s disposal, they will continue rigging the midterms and if that isn’t enough, there is no limit to what the administration will do in order to win in November. If you remember nothing else from this essay, remember the last sentence in bold type.

Finally, it is important to realize how dire the situation is for honest, law-abiding Americans. All over the world, most nations have experienced a civil war, revolution, periodic challenges to their style of government etc. Here in the US, it has been 161 years since the US civil war ended. We’ve forgotten what it means to be threatened by such acts. We have had the good fortune to live in a nation where we generally expect people to follow rules, the law and our constitution. We’ve grown accustomed to some part of government solving our problems and coming to the rescue, regardless of the threat or challenge. We have forgotten the price of liberty. No one is coming to our rescue and the sooner that we accept this, the sooner we can all come to grips with the reality of our situation.

The most succinct expression of our situation is that; The Trump administration supported by the GOP and their elite wealth backers, will stop at nothing to ensure their success in the midterms. They are cornered by their own actions and therefore more dangerous. We cannot allow them to wield their long list of powerful tools of oppression against our constitutionally guaranteed right to a free and fair election. A peaceful (preferably) revolution may be one of the best options to protecting November’s election, hence our republic.

Revolutions don’t generally happen overnight. I write this essay so that we can all begin considering where we will stand when it comes time to stand against the tyranny of this Republican administration. Revolutions are born in our hearts and in our minds, precisely as our revolution against British demonstrated. Our modern revolution isn’t to do as the Republicans are doing, dismantling American democracy, but to reclaim it from their greedy outstretched hands. Throughout American history, there were always those who stood in the breech to defeat tyranny. Their DNA is our DNA, historically speaking. Two hundred and fifty years of our servicemembers, have given their last full measure of devotion to our nation, just to preserve its values. I will be damned if I will allow their sacrifices to have gone for nothing.

We can do this and with every intention of making this a peaceful revolution. This is my goal although we should all know by now that Trump and the GOP will do anything it takes to stay in power, up and including violence. Still, Americans have never backed down from tyranny before and is highly doubtful that we’ll start now. It won’t be easy… but if we take on this revolution, we will prevail.

Onward,

Paul

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TAT readers,

First of all, thank you for being patient with this week’s first essay. I began a different essay but my gut told me to wait and see what happened in China, between Trump, Xi and Trump’s 17-member entourage of oligarchs. The absence of much serious reporting only exacerbated the gnawing at my gut about the outcomes of this meeting. There is a very long list of issues for US and other global citizens to be concerned about when there is a meeting of these two global giants, especially in regard to who holds the most global power and leverage. At the moment, Xi holds nearly all the cards that matter, therefore making Trump’s visit one of a world leader approaching another with his hat in his outstretched hand and looking for charity. No serious businessman takes such a meeting unless they need something very, very badly. Trump does in order to solve the Strait of Hormuz disaster, the US and global economy, multiple wars and a “win” to divert attention from the Epstein files. Today, I hope to bring some clarity to all of this and more. Hang on because as they say, “it’s complicated.”

I have been professionally studying China for decades and have written deeply on a great many aspects of where she fits into the global power hierarchy, hence our national security landscape. A few of those essays will be sprinkled throughout today’s essay for those seeking deep-background reading.

The takeaways from this essay should give every honest American deep concern. What we have just watched this week is Trump and his merry band of oligarchical minstrels, demonstrating for the entire world that the US is quite likely now the number 2 superpower in the world… or painfully close to it.

There’s no need to extend this brief introduction further. There is a lot to get to, and there’s no time like the present to get started.

Onward

Let’s begin with a few hard facts in order to give everyone a baseline understanding.

• China and the US are the only true-peer superpowers remaining

• In my professional assessment, the Trump administration has via its greed and arrogance, edged the US into second place as a global superpower

• China now has far more global influence than the US under our current administration and their spineless, sycophantic Republican-led congress

• Any national security professional worth their salt, should easily see that China now holds all the “trump-cards” (pun intended).

  

• The Eurasian continent now holds 6 nuclear armed states and two of the globe’s top four economies, China and India. With the exception of Israel, the other five nuclear-armed states are aligned with China or Russia, and sometimes both.

  

• In January, China, Russia and Iran signed a high-profile strategic alignment pact.

  • “In a dramatic geopolitical development this afternoon (29 January 2026), Iran, China and Russia formally signed a comprehensive strategic pact, marking one of the most consequential shifts in 21st-century international relations. While the full text of the agreement is being released in stages by the three governments, state media in Tehran, Beijing and Moscow have acknowledged the ceremony and described it as a cornerstone for a new multipolar order.”

    • - Middle East Monitor

    • - Sanjan Solomon

    • - January 29th 2026

• Trump took his favorite oligarchs to China with him.

  • Elon Musk

  • Tim Cook of Apple

  • Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO

  • Robert "Kelly" Ortberg, CEO at Boeing

  • Blackrock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink

  • Blackstone Chairman, CEO and co-founder Stephen Schwarzman

  • Cargill Chairman and CEO Brian Sikes

  • Citi Chairman and CEO Jane Fraser

  • Coherent CEO Jim Anderson

  • GE Aerospace Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp

  • Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon

  • Illumina CEO Jacob Thaysen

  • Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach

  • Meta President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick

  • Micron Chairman, President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra

  • Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon

  • Visa CEO Ryan McInerne

These points are the foundation of our concerns. The following essay is a narrative of our concerns, built onto these preceding foundational elements.

Let’s begin with a term that has bounced around DoD and the IC/ Intelligence Community for well over a decade. The term is Great Power Competition.

"Great-power competition (GPC) is a touchstone for strategists and policymakers. Its popularity stems from perceptions of China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, and the United States’ relative decline. The term’s notoriety in policy circles is related to its use in U.S. national defense and strategy guidance documents. Sometimes GPC is dismissed as a buzzword, but it is a distinctive phenomenon that deserves scholarly investigation.

GPC is a classic feature of modern international relations grounded in a traditional power politics approach. Specifically, GPC is a permanent, compulsory, comprehensive, and exclusive contest for supremacy in a region or domain among those states considered to be the major players in the international system. The contest varies in intensity over time and space but remains a persistent aspect of the international system of sovereign states.

- Great Power Competition
- Oxford Academic
- Jonathan M DiCicco, Tudor A Onea
- January 31st, 2026

Like most national security doctrinal terminology, Great Power Competition or GPC is the competition for dominance between the globe’s primary powers, such as the US, China, Russia and occasionally, India is included as well. It is common knowledge among national security professionals that Putin is attempting to rebuild Russia to the full extent of the former, Soviet Union. He intends to regain dominance over its former satellite states such as Ukraine, the Balkans, the Baltic states, Syria and of course primary Eastern European nations such as Hungary, Poland, Germany etc.

Next door in China, now Russia’s official strategic ally, Xi has his China Dream Strategy, built on the back of his well-known BRI or Belt and Road Initiative. Xi’s strategy is far more brilliant than his oft-times poor decision-making in pursuit of his goals. The China Dream Strategy’s goal is regional hegemony by 2035 and global hegemony by 2049. India on the other hand has a decades long, close relationship with Russia extending far back into the Soviet era and although she has long been a bitter rival of China, has in the past year or so, demonstrated an interest in improving a working relationship with China.

There is little trust for China in New Delhi, which keeps India logically mistrustful of Xi and for good reason. India’s long claim of being a “non-aligned” nation has evolved into what they like to call, “multi-alignment.” India’s intentions of remaining great friends with all major world powers who are often at each other’s throats, is a very dangerous high-wire act. Yes, all of this matters a great deal to the US and our now distant allies in NATO.

In a simpler fashion… India and Russia are friends while that China and Russia are partners as well. India and China don’t love each other, but they both have Russia as a common friend. This makes for a collectively very powerful kinship among three of the world’s most powerful. Adding the US into the mix at this time, is where things begin going really poorly for US global prominence under the Trump administration. Now a few words about where the US currently stands on the world stage, and warning; it’s not a pretty picture.

From the beginning of his first term, Trump has abused and attempted to either leave or destroy NATO. Now, things have gone downhill from there with Trump first not telling NATO about the US joining Israel in their defensive attack on the world’s worst, state-sponsor of terrorism, Iran. Then, when the administration’s poorly strategized war on Iran began going poorly for the US, Trump began whining, pointing fingers and issuing threats to our NATO allies, who refused to embark on Trump’s quest for Iran’s oil and dominance over the Persian Gulf.

The US cannot just leave NATO by Trump’s order. We have a treaty with NATO and only the Senate can remove us from that treaty. Yes, Trump is furious about this. One last note applies here, that Trump is weakening the world’s longest and most successful alliance. After WW II and the formation of NATO, the alliance deterred Russian and Soviet aggression for 80 + years and throughout the Cold War. Trump is weakening NATO for Putin’s sake, as we can see by his multiple reductions of US forces in Europe. To make matters worse, a couple of days ago, Trump ordered the First Cavalry Division to stop their deployment to Europe, while the deployment was already in process. This comes on the heels of Trump removing 5,000 troops from Germany because he didn’t like comments from German Chancellor, Merz about the Iran war.

The noose is now tightening on US and previous western dominance on the world stage. Just last week on May 8th, Russia and China signed some 20 cooperative commercial efforts that solidify their relationship. Russia is no longer the senior partner in the China and Russia relationship. Xi is now clearly in the driver’s seat. It’s no surprise that most of those twenty agreements overlapped with the business interests of those oligarchs tagging along on Trump’s China visit. A little more news comes from Asia than US and western news these days and according to the Asia Times, the US came away with multiple business commitments in some of those areas represented by Trump’s tag-a-longs. What China gets out of this besides less confrontation with Washington, is still very murky, but Xi is no fool and surely got more than he gave. The big question is what exactly is China getting for further enriching US and western oligarchs? This is precisely why we must be very concerned.

As long-time readers will know, I’ve been talking about the so-called new world order for quite a while. The evolving strategic global realignment beginning after the fall of the Soviet Union, is well down the path of coming more clearly into focus. As discussed in previous writings on this topic, I had identified four primary players for sharing global dominance, the US, China, Russia and to some extent, India. The basic concept is that these four nations carve up the planet into regions that they alone have primacy over or so-called, the only nations with full sovereignty. All of the other nations on the turf of these primary sovereigns, are to become something similar to a satellite state. As you can see in the graphic, the US gets all of the Americas, as we have already witnessed with the administration’s bizarre rantings about Canada, Cuba, Venezuela and so on.

Under this system, Russia gets Europe and China gets all the rest, with India playing some unique role in the mix. With the agreements signed between Putin and Xi last week, it’s starting to look like only the US and China will be the last two primary sovereignties in the final arrangement. The catch to this is that Xi’s strategy has merit and the US has no strategy. Xi has all the cards for achieving his 2049 goal of global hegemony. China’s BRI has access to nearly the entire planet where she has already put down serious operational roots. The BRI is a play of sorts on the Silk Road of Marco Polo’s time. In other words, China has spent the past dozen years of so building bridges, train tracks, roads, commercial shipping, undersea communication cables and far more, all around the world. These are often referred to as Silk Roads. All along these massive infrastructure investments, China has planted business, manufacturing and deeply ingrained influence.

The US’s global influence pales in comparison. The administration has driven away our most important allies, upset most of countries on earth with a degenerate series of tariffs, invasions, coercion, theft and even murdering thousands by abruptly shutting down life-saving USAID programs overseas. All of this means that Air Force One landed in China with a losing hand being poorly played, up against a strong hand being well-played by Xi. Xi has powerful allies or at least powerful cooperative major powers such as Russia and partially India. The US under Trump and his Republican Party, is now despised or mistrusted in nearly every corner of the world.

So I ask again, what did Trump give up to allegedly receive such cooperation these past couple of days? This just may be the question of the year. Xi is no fool and has a plan. On the other hand, Trump is a fool and has no plan. This doesn’t mean that there is no plan though. The high-powered commercial interests that accompanied Trump to Beijing certainly have strategies to profit from increased access to Chinese and affiliated nations’ markets. Depending on the ethics of these high-powered CEOs, there are some decent opportunities but then, Elon Musk is part of this group along with several banking and financial institution CEOs, that most Americans wouldn’t trust if their lives depended on it.

For one thing, Trump went to ask Xi for help resolving the mess he’s made of the global economy.

"The expanding war in Iran is disrupting, if not devastating, the global economy. Meanwhile, the sound of silence from normally voluble leaders of China and Russia is telling. From their point of view, silence is the best way for them to let Washington entangle itself in a protracted war in the Middle East, opening space to expand the influence of President Vladimir Putin of Russia in Europe and for President Xi Jinping of China in the Indo-Pacific.

Iran’s strategy of closing the Strait of Hormuz using naval mines, coastal missile batteries, and drone swarms is holding the global economy hostage as energy prices have surged. If the US plan with Iran was to mirror the Venezuela playbook by achieving a swift, overwhelming action to remove a perceived threat and declare victory, it has backfired horribly."

- How Russia and China are winning the war in Iran
- Peterson Institute for International Economics
- Elina Ribakova (PIIE) and Alicia García-Herrero (Bruegel; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
- March 30th, 2026

The US has no serious options against Iran at this point, with the exception of a full-blown invasion. Trump’s political future is currently looking pretty dim and pursuing a large-scale boots-on-the-ground invasion at this time, would be a self-inflicted mortal wound to his administration. Look, I despise the Iranian regime as much as anyone and maybe more considering my years in counterterrorism, but there is no appetite at home for another war in the Middle East, especially when Americans are being crushed by an administration and congress demonstrably inept at governing and affordability issues.

Trump’s only real global connections are Putin and Milei in Argentina. Much of the world doesn’t care much for Xi either, but with 60% of the world’s population in Asia, and an extensive global network that controls much of the world’s commerce, he is the lesser of two evils. It still startles me how far the US has fallen in a little over a year. That a China defined by military intimidation, predatory financial practices and human rights abuse, looks better to most than the US under this administration, is beyond humiliating.

Even the Arab Gulf oil states have lost cohesion, with the UAE leaving OPEC a week ago. Qatar left in 2019. The Saudis are furious at the inability of the US to hold up their end of the bargain, and protect the Arab nations on the west side of the Gulf from Iran. China has made an enormous play for influence in the Gulf. She has invested 101 billion dollars in Gulf states since 2005 and with the US more than a bit out of favor at the moment, the region is ripe for sliding closer to China. It would seem that everything Trump and the Republicans touch, dies.

As I sit here writing, I just saw a news story pop up that may tell us what Trump gave up to Xi. First of all, a large arms sale to Taiwan that the administration had approved, is now on hold and Trump says he is considering whether to go through with it. This is a high-priority issue for Xi and helps him advance his China Dream Strategy. Considering that part of the agenda for this trip was to ask Xi for help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, something Xi really wanted had to be on the table. The issue of Taiwan has long been a redline for the US and other allies. Since 1949, the US has backed Taiwan’s independence from China. Not only does Trump’s potential halting of this arms package to Taiwan put her at significant risk, but due to the number of munitions borrowed from the Pacific Theater for use against Iran, we no longer have enough stockpiled for any sustained conflict with China over Taiwan.

This morning in The Asia Times, a major Hong Kong based and reputable newspaper, reads very different from what is being printed here in the US.

"Salesman Trump leaves China with very little in his bag." The subtitle was even more mundane: "Summit yields agreement to continue talking about a potential framework for a deal – though unlikely during Trump’s term."

An excerpt from the article:
"Sure, there’s talk of some Boeing plane orders, soybean purchases and a reciprocal Xi visit to Washington later this year. But the truly big issues – unfettered access to rare earths, AI coordination or reopening the Strait of Hormuz – were left on the table for another time."

- Salesman Trump leaves China with very little in his bag
- The Asia Times
- William Pesek
- May 15th, 2026

As we all know here in the US, truth from the White House and the Republican-led congress is hard to come by. It will be interesting to see if our mainstream news outlets publish Asia’s version or the typical Trump-friendly US version. Either way, an analytical look at this high-profile visit shows that it was more hoopla than business. The big questions remain on the table. Xi easily won this round of talks by being a generous host with plenty of fanfare to make Trump feel important. It’s no secret that buttering him up is a profitable tactic when you want things from him. Xi’s takeaways were cooperation on a handful of business ventures that are good for China. He also communicated a very firm warning to the US regarding Taiwan, saying, that “clashes” could occur if the Taiwan situation wasn’t handled properly. Xi’s stern warning was in stark contrast to Trump’s attempts to put a positive spin on their talks.

To make matters worse regarding Taiwan, Trump in press interview claimed that Taiwan “was a great bargaining chip.” He followed up with saying that he just thought that Taiwan was too far away to defend for the US. You don’t need to be a bloodhound to smell the sellout coming for Taiwan.

In my estimation, I believe that when more reporting is available, we’ll see little accomplished from these meetings outside of Boeing likely selling more planes to Xi and China buying soybeans, which they’d already agreed to last fall. Trump appeared weaker due to having to ask Xi for help with Iran and not committing to go through with the Taiwanese arms package. Time will tell if he does or doesn’t but if I were Taiwanese, I would be nervous. In the big picture, it is daily more apparent, that the US under Trump’s leadership, has few friends in the world and a significantly weaker national security posture because of it. Nothing occurred in Beijing that will relieve the crushing affordability issues plaguing the US taxpayers, which will only increase our frustration with the administration. I frankly don’t see Xi making any heroic efforts to settle the Strait of Hormuz issue either, unless… Trump sold-out Taiwan. I imagine that we’ll find out which, soon enough.

I hope this very dense essay helps to better understand the bigger picture for everyone. The saddest part of this summit, is that it only intensifies my feelings that as a nation, we are no longer either a beacon of democracy or the primary global superpower. One thing for sure though, is that if we don’t rid ourselves of the entirety of this administration and it’s Republican leadership in congress, we will certainly become number two, in a short amount of time. Free and fair midterms are our only way out and even this is not a sure bet. We have the power to change all of this, if we only stand together in November.

Onward to November and the restoration of our republic.

Paul

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TAT readers,

In honor of this coming Sunday’s Mother’s Day, today I am writing to not only honor mothers, but women all together, as the mightiest of resources in the fight against the Republican Party’s toxic misogynism and plethora of other immoral, illegal and unconstitutional actions. Throughout American history, our nation’s women have pursued justice for centuries to become fully equal. They are not there yet and for Mother’s Day, I wish to applaud and revere their courage and tenacity.

All my life I’ve heard in a variety of forms an old saying; “I brought you into this world and I can take you out as well.” This was nearly always spoken in jest, but today’s essay about the role women have played throughout history as undaunted advocates against tyranny and oppression have clearly demonstrated that they are indefatigable “mama bears,” willing to stand in the breech to protect her children. They are often called mama bears. There is even a name for their ethical and tenacious pursuit of justice, the “mama bear effect.”

"Have you ever met a creature more fierce than a mother who is worried about her children? That’s surely where the moniker "mama bear" comes from. The peaceful black bears who used to wander into my backyard as a child were very nurturing to their cubs. But even as kids we knew not to go near their cubs; that mama bear would kill us in a heartbeat if she thought her cubs were threatened."

- Motherhood Changes the Decision-Making Area of the Brain
- Psychology Today
- Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
- July 20, 2020

Most of us have seen the mama bear effect in various times and places in our lives. These can include, the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her babies, as an advocate for combatting child abuse, bullying and especially, child sexual abuse, but also in a hundred different situations when our mothers or other women in our lives, will fiercely stand up to overwhelming opposition. Yes, there are papa bears as well and they can be just as fierce in defense of their families as women, but then again, it is the mother that carries and delivers life. Their unique connective bond with the children they carry, deliver and nurture, is far different from what a man experiences.

I saw this in my own mother. Though a quiet and polite woman to a fault, once her jaw was set defending the indefensible threats to my brother and I, it was wise to pay attention. I’ve seen it in family members and friends who’ve adopted, fostered or otherwise supported children without access to their own mother or similar support systems. If I were today’s GOP, drunk on toxic misogyny and abuse of all who are not male, white Christian Nationalists and extremely right-wing, I would be paying a great deal of attention to the power of all mothers and women in general. I believe women to be a greatly under-empowered strength, for fighting back against the blanket immorality and abuse by today’s Republicans, against all of America’s children.

As I have long indicated, I believe today’s DNC to be AWOL from the resistance in any meaningful way. If they are reading this, I hope they take the hint to prioritize women, as the collective Joan d’Arc of the resistance movement. There are no fiercer warriors than women operating as mama bears. There are countless historical examples of how a woman or a movement of like-minded women have made and changed history. Today, I wish to bring you some insightful history to the role women have played in advocating for and achieving justice for their children or the children of others, up to and including, entire nations. I like to think of the women of our once proud nation, as American Amazons, comparable to the once thought mythical women warriors of Greek mythology.

"Amazons, in mythology, are a group of female warriors prominently featured in ancient Greek narratives. These women formed a distinct society characterized by their rejection of traditional female roles, engaging in combat, hunting, and land cultivation. The myths describe them as fierce and skilled fighters, equal to men in battle. The Amazons were said to inhabit the land of Thermodon, with their capital in Themiscyra, ruled by a queen. In Greek mythology, they appear in notable stories, such as the tasks of Heracles and the Trojan War, striving to gain recognition as formidable opponents.

Historically, the existence of Amazons was long regarded as fictional until archaeological findings in the 21st century suggested that warrior women resembling the Amazons did exist, particularly in regions of northern Turkey and Ukraine. These discoveries revealed that women of the Sauromatian culture were buried with weapons, indicating their role as warriors. The myth of the Amazons, influenced by observations of real-life female tribes and cultural exchanges, has continued to capture the imagination across various periods and has inspired numerous artistic representations throughout history."

- Amazons (mythology)
- EBSCO
- Authored By: Caffrey, Cait 

Onward

Today, I’ll tell you a couple of short stories that clearly show American women’s untiring and ferocious determination when they feel unseen and unheard. As far as women’s rights have come in my lifetime, there are still significant hurdles to being fully equal. Today’s GOP is actively reversing many of those gains and have charted a course for even fewer rights for women. As you will see in the following historical examples, these misogynist Republicans are in for a fight to the finish with women, and the men that respect and honor them, me included.

From the very beginning of our nation, there were women who rankled at being second class citizens without a vote, property rights and countless other restrictions from full citizenship. President and founder John Adam’s wife Abigail was one of these women outspoken against giving men “unlimited power” over the women in our nascent nation. Despite our founders being overwhelmingly progressive for their era or “woke,” there were notable vacancies in their wokeness, with women’s rights and slavery being a glaring examples.

"In the nation’s founding generation, Abigail Adams engaged directly with questions of law and representation, urging that the new republic avoid replicating old injustices.  As the nation took shape, she wrote to her husband to “remember the ladies” when creating new laws and cautioned against granting husbands “unlimited power.” Her letters are among the earliest writings in our country calling for the expansion of women’s rights."

- The Women Who Built Our Democracy Before It Included Them
- The Bush Center
- Alexis Yelvington
- March 05, 2026

Ironically, I grew up in an America where a man was not considered manly, if he oppressed and abused women within his family, community or nation. Such behavior was generally considered shameful and this belief crossed all political, racial or religious barriers. Of course, such toxic behavior did occur at the time, and more often than anyone wishes to recall, but was never condoned, hence the secrecy such men impose on those they abuse and habitually disrespect.

"Project 2025 seeks to impose a hierarchal, gendered, patriarchal vision of society. It is particularly focused on enforcing a vision of the family that relies on fixed and narrowly defined gender roles and in undermining protections that enable women and LGBTQI+ people to thrive outside of a male-dominated, heterosexual family."

- Project 2025: What It Means for Women, Families, and Gender Justice
- National Women's Law Center

Today, the GOP indoctrinates men to behave abusively towards women and in fact, rewards them for it, therefore removing that previous social stigma. Project 2025 even codifies critical parts of their beliefs about women. The oft employed comparison of the GOP to The Handmaid’s Tale, is frighteningly accurate. Abusive Christian Nationalism wields theological guilt and punishment as weapons, to “keep women in their place.”

American women’s movements

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” 

- Margaret Mead

The American Suffragette movement

The acquisition of the right to vote for women in America, took 132 years of hard fought battles with family, communities and yes, the US government. How tragic, that in a nation where we proclaimed in our founding documents that we were all “equal,” women and a wide spectrum of other Americans were not, and remain so under Trump-era Republican administrations. Slavery ended and former male slaves acquired voting rights, long before women would. Of course, these former male slaves experienced countless obstacles to voting, while that courageous women of all races toiled on for another 55 years after the Civil War, before they managed to have the legal right to vote.

Suffrage, was finally achieved when congress finally ratified the 19th amendment in 1920. The truth is, that it was actually born of the courageous and dogged determination of a long list of remarkable women, beginning in 1848 and 60 years after the ratification of our constitution. Those heroines in Seneca, NY in 1848 were the birth mothers and with little more than their own strong will, they began growing a powerful national coalition of women and notable men like Frederick Douglas to advance their cause. The 1848 Seneca convention was convened by a combination of activist abolitionists and suffragettes, seeking universal suffrage. There were famous names like Susan B. Anthony, a talented strategist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who initiated the first conference in NY, Dr. Alice Paul, a fiery activist who among others, led protests outside the White House from 1917-1919 despite beatings and harassment.

Then there is one of the most remarkable stories in the movement such as that of a former slave named Sojourner Truth who despite a lifetime of tragedy, still made an extraordinary difference in the movement. In an iconic speech in Akron, Ohio in 1851 she made one of the most powerful speeches in American history for slave and women’s rights, called, “Ain’t I a Woman.” Surprising to most Americans, Helen Keller was a self-described “militant suffragette” who wielded her significant public notoriety in support of a wide variety of civil rights causes including suffrage.

"A self-described “militant suffragette,” Keller used the considerable notoriety she gained in her adolescence to advocate for others for the rest of her life. In 1913, Keller participated in the large parade known as the “Woman Suffrage Procession” in Washington, DC. Her interest in women’s rights was rooted in her connections to contemporary labor movements. Keller was particularly interested in working people’s issues, including industrial safety standards, which led to membership in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Keller’s radical politics also included supporting the movement to increase access to birth control for women. When a biographical film called Deliverance, which featured Keller, premiered in New York City, she joined with striking actors instead of attending."

- Helen Keller
- National Park Service 

These are just a handful of the extraordinary women who brought the vote to their sisters. As I was researching this essay, I found names I was familiar with and far more that I wasn’t. The list of heroines that willed the 19th amendment into our constitution, is very long indeed. These early advocates stretched to every corner of our nation and included warriors of every race, religion and ethnicity. Without them, who knows how long women would have been without a vote. As many readers know, I read a great deal of history. Reacquainting myself with the suffragette movement for this essay, has been nothing short of inspiring. Like Helen Keller, most of these warriors, supported many causes associated with what today we call civil rights.

The ERA, Equal Rights Amendment

In 1923, just three years after congress ratified the women’s right to vote, Dr. Alice Paul was relentless to continue her advocacy for national equality and managed to introduce the ERA to congress. Every year, hers and other’s advocacy persistently prodded congress to take up the ERA. It wouldn’t be until 1940 though that the ERA acquired enough bi-partisan support to get the amendment onto the floor of congress. Then, in 1955, Representative Martha Wright Griffiths (D-MI) was elected to congress and she would then champion the proposed amendment. It would take her until 1970 to acquire enough support to get the ERA out of the Judiciary Committee and onto the floor of congress. The House would pass the bill and the Senate would offer an amendment, but there would not be enough time left in the 1970 congressional session to get the bill passed. During the debate in the House of Representatives, she was famously quoted.

"Mr. Speaker, this is not a battle between the sexes—nor a battle between this body and women. This is a battle with the Supreme Court of the United States.”

- Representative Martha Wright Griffiths

It wasn’t until 2020 that enough states had ratified the ERA for it to become law, but via a complicated set of legal issues surrounding expired time limits for enough states to ratify the amendment, it remains unpublished, a requirement for it to become law. The first Trump administration issued a memo opposing publication of the passed amendment in our constitution, therefore rendering it a dead amendment. In 2023, a DC appeals court would seal its fate for the time being with a ruling on upholding the original time limits for ratification. The advocates for equal rights for women and all Americans, won’t give up. They are still mama bears protecting everyone from discrimination. They’ve been diligently and actively pursuing this goal since 1848 and they’ve overcome far worse obstructions to their intentions. I would be remiss here if I did not congratulate the League of Women Voters, where volunteer, deeply principled and non-partisan women, heroically do their best to inform our nation on all aspects of voting. They believe that free and fair elections are our birthright. Bravo to these heroines who have been at their mission faithfully for a century.

Throughout US and world history, it has been women, often working without pay and recognition that have changed our world and its history. It is a mistake to underestimate their power and most especially when they are focused on protecting those disadvantaged by rights, wealth, disability or sex. In today’s America, we are learning how to deal with a variety of gender issues and yes, women are again on the front lines of fighting for equality. As a parent, I well understand that parents love their children, even though we may not like their behavior at times. Mama bear syndrome takes this to an entirely new level.

No matter how much the MAGA GOP threatens our guaranteed constitutional rights, there are two strikes against them. First, Americans don’t back down from bullies and secondly, anyone taking on legions of women warriors has extremely poor judgement. Throughout our history, women have made remarkable contributions to our nation and the world.

It’s no secret that the Trump administration does not respect women and is building a culture of toxic masculinity. The lifelong sexual predator and probable child sexual predator has a lifetime of well-documented abuse and disrespect for women. His Secretary of Defense and several other members of his cabinet are only slightly better, if at all. Project 2025 outlines limiting rights for women and all others that are not white Christian Nationalist males. No more women or officers of color, occupy top Pentagon positions since Hegseth’s purges. The only cabinet members purged from his cabinet are women and every single day there’s a new revelation regarding Trump’s close association with Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Even worse, Republicans are now considering a pardon, clemency or a commuted sentence for Maxwell, a convicted sex and child sex trafficker.

The Republicans in his administration and congress, are doing all possible, up and to include breaking the law, to protect Trump from his obvious involvement in the most outrageous and disgusting scandal in American history. I nor any other honest American can understand how any woman can vote for Trump, his cronies and his party considering his humiliating record with women and children. I have daughters and granddaughters that I fear for with this version of the Republican Party in charge of our nation. In America, not only do women now have lesser rights, but are apparently, legitimate prey, for the those in favor with the Republican Party.

As we head into the midterms, I see toxic masculinity, sexual predation and coverups as a primary narrative against the depravity of GOP rule. Women and others disenfranchised by one gender issue or another, must be empowered and supported robustly against the depravity of MAGA oppression on all causes, not just gender. As I watch congressional hearings, I see women representatives and Senators mincing Republican witnesses with intelligence, facts and perseverance. They are completely fearless against the cowardly bullying by Republican witnesses. It’s true that men in congress are doing the same, but then again, they are not risking as much personally as women and others regarding gender. I penned a powerful essay on this in July of 2024 during the run-up to the November presidential election.

If the DNC can’t be convinced to get in the game, we must do it for them. American women have long proved that they can succeed on their own, but why should they? If we fail to defend everyone’s rights, we would not be honoring the very constitution that we claim to love. This is the intent of our constitution and literally what it means to have liberty. Here in the US, we fought a civil war to set men free. Don’t you think we should commit ourselves equally in support of women? Throughout this last dozen years or so of Trump Republicanism, I have long wondered how Republican politicians can look their wives, daughters and granddaughters in the eye when they go home. They are severing the rights of all women, including the ones in their own families.

My final thoughts on this topic are relatively simple and pointedly straightforward. Women bear the children that become our future citizens. These mama-bears and the men who support them are our future. While most men have evolved towards total equality for all Americans, those running our republic have not. It incenses me watching Pete Hegseth’s drunken, toxic masculinity degrade the service of women in our military. My first wife was one of the best soldiers in our company. I’ve served with women within the US Special Operations Command in combat zones that were nothing short of extraordinary, in every way.

Lastly, when I see my daughters and granddaughters I see our future. There is zero chance that I will not defend the equality of their citizenship. If everyone saw the women in their families, communities and our nation in a similar fashion, there would be no Trump or MAGA Republicans. Sure, they claim to love the women in their lives too, but not as full citizens with an equal stake in our future. That is not America my friends and until we realize this, there will always be a MAGA or MAGA-like threat to the founding principles of liberty, that our founders foresaw for our young nation.

Bravo and thank you to all mothers who are “mama-bears” for their own or other’s children. True patriots will always be honored to stand next to you in your quest for equality and respect, me included. Not ahead of or behind you, but shoulder to shoulder. So long as you remain fierce defenders of our future, the words from President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address will ring true; “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Happy Mother’s Day and thank you to all,

Paul

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TAT readers,

In honor of this coming Sunday’s Mother’s Day, today I am writing to not only honor mothers, but women all together, as the mightiest of resources in the fight against the Republican Party’s toxic misogynism and plethora of other immoral, illegal and unconstitutional actions. Throughout American history, our nation’s women have pursued justice for centuries to become fully equal. They are not there yet and for Mother’s Day, I wish to applaud and revere their courage and tenacity.

All my life I’ve heard in a variety of forms an old saying; “I brought you into this world and I can take you out as well.” This was nearly always spoken in jest, but today’s essay about the role women have played throughout history as undaunted advocates against tyranny and oppression have clearly demonstrated that they are indefatigable “mama bears,” willing to stand in the breech to protect her children. They are often called mama bears. There is even a name for their ethical and tenacious pursuit of justice, the “mama bear effect.”

"Have you ever met a creature more fierce than a mother who is worried about her children? That’s surely where the moniker "mama bear" comes from. The peaceful black bears who used to wander into my backyard as a child were very nurturing to their cubs. But even as kids we knew not to go near their cubs; that mama bear would kill us in a heartbeat if she thought her cubs were threatened."

- Motherhood Changes the Decision-Making Area of the Brain
- Psychology Today
- Reviewed by Gary Drevitch
- July 20, 2020

Most of us have seen the mama bear effect in various times and places in our lives. These can include, the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her babies, as an advocate for combatting child abuse, bullying and especially, child sexual abuse, but also in a hundred different situations when our mothers or other women in our lives, will fiercely stand up to overwhelming opposition. Yes, there are papa bears as well and they can be just as fierce in defense of their families as women, but then again, it is the mother that carries and delivers life. Their unique connective bond with the children they carry, deliver and nurture, is far different from what a man experiences.

I saw this in my own mother. Though a quiet and polite woman to a fault, once her jaw was set defending the indefensible threats to my brother and I, it was wise to pay attention. I’ve seen it in family members and friends who’ve adopted, fostered or otherwise supported children without access to their own mother or similar support systems. If I were today’s GOP, drunk on toxic misogyny and abuse of all who are not male, white Christian Nationalists and extremely right-wing, I would be paying a great deal of attention to the power of all mothers and women in general. I believe women to be a greatly under-empowered strength, for fighting back against the blanket immorality and abuse by today’s Republicans, against all of America’s children.

As I have long indicated, I believe today’s DNC to be AWOL from the resistance in any meaningful way. If they are reading this, I hope they take the hint to prioritize women, as the collective Joan d’Arc of the resistance movement. There are no fiercer warriors than women operating as mama bears. There are countless historical examples of how a woman or a movement of like-minded women have made and changed history. Today, I wish to bring you some insightful history to the role women have played in advocating for and achieving justice for their children or the children of others, up to and including, entire nations. I like to think of the women of our once proud nation, as American Amazons, comparable to the once thought mythical women warriors of Greek mythology.

"Amazons, in mythology, are a group of female warriors prominently featured in ancient Greek narratives. These women formed a distinct society characterized by their rejection of traditional female roles, engaging in combat, hunting, and land cultivation. The myths describe them as fierce and skilled fighters, equal to men in battle. The Amazons were said to inhabit the land of Thermodon, with their capital in Themiscyra, ruled by a queen. In Greek mythology, they appear in notable stories, such as the tasks of Heracles and the Trojan War, striving to gain recognition as formidable opponents.

Historically, the existence of Amazons was long regarded as fictional until archaeological findings in the 21st century suggested that warrior women resembling the Amazons did exist, particularly in regions of northern Turkey and Ukraine. These discoveries revealed that women of the Sauromatian culture were buried with weapons, indicating their role as warriors. The myth of the Amazons, influenced by observations of real-life female tribes and cultural exchanges, has continued to capture the imagination across various periods and has inspired numerous artistic representations throughout history."

- Amazons (mythology)
- EBSCO
- Authored By: Caffrey, Cait 

Onward

Today, I’ll tell you a couple of short stories that clearly show American women’s untiring and ferocious determination when they feel unseen and unheard. As far as women’s rights have come in my lifetime, there are still significant hurdles to being fully equal. Today’s GOP is actively reversing many of those gains and have charted a course for even fewer rights for women. As you will see in the following historical examples, these misogynist Republicans are in for a fight to the finish with women, and the men that respect and honor them, me included.

From the very beginning of our nation, there were women who rankled at being second class citizens without a vote, property rights and countless other restrictions from full citizenship. President and founder John Adam’s wife Abigail was one of these women outspoken against giving men “unlimited power” over the women in our nascent nation. Despite our founders being overwhelmingly progressive for their era or “woke,” there were notable vacancies in their wokeness, with women’s rights and slavery being a glaring examples.

"In the nation’s founding generation, Abigail Adams engaged directly with questions of law and representation, urging that the new republic avoid replicating old injustices.  As the nation took shape, she wrote to her husband to “remember the ladies” when creating new laws and cautioned against granting husbands “unlimited power.” Her letters are among the earliest writings in our country calling for the expansion of women’s rights."

- The Women Who Built Our Democracy Before It Included Them
- The Bush Center
- Alexis Yelvington
- March 05, 2026

Ironically, I grew up in an America where a man was not considered manly, if he oppressed and abused women within his family, community or nation. Such behavior was generally considered shameful and this belief crossed all political, racial or religious barriers. Of course, such toxic behavior did occur at the time, and more often than anyone wishes to recall, but was never condoned, hence the secrecy such men impose on those they abuse and habitually disrespect.

"Project 2025 seeks to impose a hierarchal, gendered, patriarchal vision of society. It is particularly focused on enforcing a vision of the family that relies on fixed and narrowly defined gender roles and in undermining protections that enable women and LGBTQI+ people to thrive outside of a male-dominated, heterosexual family."

- Project 2025: What It Means for Women, Families, and Gender Justice
- National Women's Law Center

Today, the GOP indoctrinates men to behave abusively towards women and in fact, rewards them for it, therefore removing that previous social stigma. Project 2025 even codifies critical parts of their beliefs about women. The oft employed comparison of the GOP to The Handmaid’s Tale, is frighteningly accurate. Abusive Christian Nationalism wields theological guilt and punishment as weapons, to “keep women in their place.”

American women’s movements

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” 

- Margaret Mead

The American Suffragette movement

The acquisition of the right to vote for women in America, took 132 years of hard fought battles with family, communities and yes, the US government. How tragic, that in a nation where we proclaimed in our founding documents that we were all “equal,” women and a wide spectrum of other Americans were not, and remain so under Trump-era Republican administrations. Slavery ended and former male slaves acquired voting rights, long before women would. Of course, these former male slaves experienced countless obstacles to voting, while that courageous women of all races toiled on for another 55 years after the Civil War, before they managed to have the legal right to vote.

Suffrage, was finally achieved when congress finally ratified the 19th amendment in 1920. The truth is, that it was actually born of the courageous and dogged determination of a long list of remarkable women, beginning in 1848 and 60 years after the ratification of our constitution. Those heroines in Seneca, NY in 1848 were the birth mothers and with little more than their own strong will, they began growing a powerful national coalition of women and notable men like Frederick Douglas to advance their cause. The 1848 Seneca convention was convened by a combination of activist abolitionists and suffragettes, seeking universal suffrage. There were famous names like Susan B. Anthony, a talented strategist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who initiated the first conference in NY, Dr. Alice Paul, a fiery activist who among others, led protests outside the White House from 1917-1919 despite beatings and harassment.

Then there is one of the most remarkable stories in the movement such as that of a former slave named Sojourner Truth who despite a lifetime of tragedy, still made an extraordinary difference in the movement. In an iconic speech in Akron, Ohio in 1851 she made one of the most powerful speeches in American history for slave and women’s rights, called, “Ain’t I a Woman.” Surprising to most Americans, Helen Keller was a self-described “militant suffragette” who wielded her significant public notoriety in support of a wide variety of civil rights causes including suffrage.

"A self-described “militant suffragette,” Keller used the considerable notoriety she gained in her adolescence to advocate for others for the rest of her life. In 1913, Keller participated in the large parade known as the “Woman Suffrage Procession” in Washington, DC. Her interest in women’s rights was rooted in her connections to contemporary labor movements. Keller was particularly interested in working people’s issues, including industrial safety standards, which led to membership in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Keller’s radical politics also included supporting the movement to increase access to birth control for women. When a biographical film called Deliverance, which featured Keller, premiered in New York City, she joined with striking actors instead of attending."

- Helen Keller
- National Park Service 

These are just a handful of the extraordinary women who brought the vote to their sisters. As I was researching this essay, I found names I was familiar with and far more that I wasn’t. The list of heroines that willed the 19th amendment into our constitution, is very long indeed. These early advocates stretched to every corner of our nation and included warriors of every race, religion and ethnicity. Without them, who knows how long women would have been without a vote. As many readers know, I read a great deal of history. Reacquainting myself with the suffragette movement for this essay, has been nothing short of inspiring. Like Helen Keller, most of these warriors, supported many causes associated with what today we call civil rights.

The ERA, Equal Rights Amendment

In 1923, just three years after congress ratified the women’s right to vote, Dr. Alice Paul was relentless to continue her advocacy for national equality and managed to introduce the ERA to congress. Every year, hers and other’s advocacy persistently prodded congress to take up the ERA. It wouldn’t be until 1940 though that the ERA acquired enough bi-partisan support to get the amendment onto the floor of congress. Then, in 1955, Representative Martha Wright Griffiths (D-MI) was elected to congress and she would then champion the proposed amendment. It would take her until 1970 to acquire enough support to get the ERA out of the Judiciary Committee and onto the floor of congress. The House would pass the bill and the Senate would offer an amendment, but there would not be enough time left in the 1970 congressional session to get the bill passed. During the debate in the House of Representatives, she was famously quoted.

"Mr. Speaker, this is not a battle between the sexes—nor a battle between this body and women. This is a battle with the Supreme Court of the United States.”

- Representative Martha Wright Griffiths

It wasn’t until 2020 that enough states had ratified the ERA for it to become law, but via a complicated set of legal issues surrounding expired time limits for enough states to ratify the amendment, it remains unpublished, a requirement for it to become law. The first Trump administration issued a memo opposing publication of the passed amendment in our constitution, therefore rendering it a dead amendment. In 2023, a DC appeals court would seal its fate for the time being with a ruling on upholding the original time limits for ratification. The advocates for equal rights for women and all Americans, won’t give up. They are still mama bears protecting everyone from discrimination. They’ve been diligently and actively pursuing this goal since 1848 and they’ve overcome far worse obstructions to their intentions. I would be remiss here if I did not congratulate the League of Women Voters, where volunteer, deeply principled and non-partisan women, heroically do their best to inform our nation on all aspects of voting. They believe that free and fair elections are our birthright. Bravo to these heroines who have been at their mission faithfully for a century.

Throughout US and world history, it has been women, often working without pay and recognition that have changed our world and its history. It is a mistake to underestimate their power and most especially when they are focused on protecting those disadvantaged by rights, wealth, disability or sex. In today’s America, we are learning how to deal with a variety of gender issues and yes, women are again on the front lines of fighting for equality. As a parent, I well understand that parents love their children, even though we may not like their behavior at times. Mama bear syndrome takes this to an entirely new level.

No matter how much the MAGA GOP threatens our guaranteed constitutional rights, there are two strikes against them. First, Americans don’t back down from bullies and secondly, anyone taking on legions of women warriors has extremely poor judgement. Throughout our history, women have made remarkable contributions to our nation and the world.

It’s no secret that the Trump administration does not respect women and is building a culture of toxic masculinity. The lifelong sexual predator and probable child sexual predator has a lifetime of well-documented abuse and disrespect for women. His Secretary of Defense and several other members of his cabinet are only slightly better, if at all. Project 2025 outlines limiting rights for women and all others that are not white Christian Nationalist males. No more women or officers of color, occupy top Pentagon positions since Hegseth’s purges. The only cabinet members purged from his cabinet are women and every single day there’s a new revelation regarding Trump’s close association with Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Even worse, Republicans are now considering a pardon, clemency or a commuted sentence for Maxwell, a convicted sex and child sex trafficker.

The Republicans in his administration and congress, are doing all possible, up and to include breaking the law, to protect Trump from his obvious involvement in the most outrageous and disgusting scandal in American history. I nor any other honest American can understand how any woman can vote for Trump, his cronies and his party considering his humiliating record with women and children. I have daughters and granddaughters that I fear for with this version of the Republican Party in charge of our nation. In America, not only do women now have lesser rights, but are apparently, legitimate prey, for the those in favor with the Republican Party.

As we head into the midterms, I see toxic masculinity, sexual predation and coverups as a primary narrative against the depravity of GOP rule. Women and others disenfranchised by one gender issue or another, must be empowered and supported robustly against the depravity of MAGA oppression on all causes, not just gender. As I watch congressional hearings, I see women representatives and Senators mincing Republican witnesses with intelligence, facts and perseverance. They are completely fearless against the cowardly bullying by Republican witnesses. It’s true that men in congress are doing the same, but then again, they are not risking as much personally as women and others regarding gender. I penned a powerful essay on this in July of 2024 during the run-up to the November presidential election.

If the DNC can’t be convinced to get in the game, we must do it for them. American women have long proved that they can succeed on their own, but why should they? If we fail to defend everyone’s rights, we would not be honoring the very constitution that we claim to love. This is the intent of our constitution and literally what it means to have liberty. Here in the US, we fought a civil war to set men free. Don’t you think we should commit ourselves equally in support of women? Throughout this last dozen years or so of Trump Republicanism, I have long wondered how Republican politicians can look their wives, daughters and granddaughters in the eye when they go home. They are severing the rights of all women, including the ones in their own families.

My final thoughts on this topic are relatively simple and pointedly straightforward. Women bear the children that become our future citizens. These mama-bears and the men who support them are our future. While most men have evolved towards total equality for all Americans, those running our republic have not. It incenses me watching Pete Hegseth’s drunken, toxic masculinity degrade the service of women in our military. My first wife was one of the best soldiers in our company. I’ve served with women within the US Special Operations Command in combat zones that were nothing short of extraordinary, in every way.

Lastly, when I see my daughters and granddaughters I see our future. There is zero chance that I will not defend the equality of their citizenship. If everyone saw the women in their families, communities and our nation in a similar fashion, there would be no Trump or MAGA Republicans. Sure, they claim to love the women in their lives too, but not as full citizens with an equal stake in our future. That is not America my friends and until we realize this, there will always be a MAGA or MAGA-like threat to the founding principles of liberty, that our founders foresaw for our young nation.

Bravo and thank you to all mothers who are “mama-bears” for their own or other’s children. True patriots will always be honored stand next to you in your quest for equality and respect, me included. Not ahead of or behind you, but shoulder to shoulder. So long as you remain fierce defenders of our future, the words from President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address will ring true; “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Happy Mother’s Day and thank you to all,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is something that we must understand sooner than later, if we are to have the midterm results that will make a difference. I have analyzed, strategized, planned, executed and assessed plenty of influence campaigns throughout my military career. Roughly two-thirds were focused on different native populations in combat zones. While that there are military processes for planning influence campaigns, I have long understand that successful influence operations are part art and part science, with the most important part being art, especially in the analysis, strategy and planning phases. The key is to collect intelligence and analyze everything about an environment, nation, region, specific people etc., with a clear, unbiased eye. This analysis is how we come to what is called the COG, or Center of Gravity of our adversaries or competitors. Please bear with me for just a couple more paragraphs and this won’t sound so much like, “military-speak.”

Since there have long been competing professional definitions for COG in doctrinal writing, I will add a simplified and inclusive definition of my own in the quote below which applies to the current assault on our republic by the administration and Republican Party. In its simplest form, the COG is what we have to break down more anything else, to cause our adversaries to be unable to reach their goals.”

Center of Gravity

A source of massed power—physical, ideological, and a source of leverage, whose degradation, neutralization, or destruction would have the most decisive impact on the adversary's ability to accomplish their organization's objectives. 

- Cobaugh
- May 2026

Okay my friends, no more military doctrine-speak. All you need to remember is that we must focus on the one thing that enables this corrupt and treasonous administration, and that is the Republican Party. I cannot make it any clearer, that we must have a powerful national narrative that shames and blames the Republican-led Congress and the Republican Party-at-large, for our affordability crisis, protecting pedophiles and a failed Iran war at a minimum. This requires the checkbook and network connections of the DNC. They have already proved themselves AWOL from leadership, so we’ll have to find the leadership ourselves. The rest we are capable of doing if we work together. Being a Republican that still supports the administration whether in congress or in our hometowns, must be made shameful. Nothing makes influence easier than having the truth on your side. Shameful is the truth in this case.

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What I’m talking about is Narrative Warfare or NW for short. I won’t do a deep dive on this as that I’ve written about it quite often in the past two and a half years, but will add a couple of links for those that wish for more in-depth background. The short answer though, is that NW is highly specialized and the most successful style of influence operations, with no close second. Professionally speaking, we cannot win at Narrative Warfare, so long as we are exclusively in a reactive mode. In the news, we often hear or read the term, “counternarratives,” but if all we have are counternarratives, it’s like playing great defense in a baseball game but having zero offense. You can’t win if you don’t score runs.

• Conned, the conversion of the GOP conservatives into right-wing extremists

• Without factoring "brainwashing" into the equation for 2024, we're doomed to another far-right, extremist administration, no matter what pollsters say.

For the past decade plus, the DNC has exclusively played defense. For example, during the 2024 election cycle, all we heard about in the media was immigration at the southern border and inflation. With the left having no narrative of their own about these two subjects, the media ran exclusively with the Republican narratives about both. When the media went looking for a story, the DNC had none, leaving the RNC to control what America was talking about. There are no narratives even now from the left alone or from the resistance altogether. No Kings demonstrations are great motivators but without their own narrative or narratives, lose their steam within 48 hours. NW requires sustained operations that include narratives being disseminated anywhere that voters live, work or play.

The GOP has an extensive narrative stable that they trot out on a daily They use code words, languages and in fact, coded narratives, often built onto their insane conspiracy theories they have absorbed since roughly 2012. Republicans that still vote for the party, have internalized all of their insane narratives, beginning largely with the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory. Republicans believe these fairy tales fully, and most won’t change their opinions in our lifetime. This works exactly the same as radicalization of youth into cults or extremist organizations.

A long career in CT/ Counterterrorism has taught me that once someone is radicalized past a certain threshold, there is little chance of them fully recovering from their aberrant beliefs… ever. This is another hard data-point, that we must always keep in the back of our minds. Hardcore MAGA Republicans that have already voted for Trump three times, are most likely lost to family, friends and community forever. We may still break bread with them, but their political beliefs are now part of who they are or will become. I personally believe that this dynamic exists in roughly 25 - 30% of the American electorate.

In my analysis, the primary narratives that the DNC plus the resistance requires are; 1. Trump and his merry band of oligarchs and thugs, could not have done so much damage to us, unless the GOP-led congress, enabled it. 2. The GOP is responsible protecting pedophiles 3. The illegal Iran war is primarily about acquiring more oil and power for the 1% and while we the people suffer the costs.

All the DNC has to do, is to build narratives around these three points and deploy them at least as aggressively, as the Republican media machine disseminates their lies. This would give us an offense, where we once played only defense. What we must have for success, is to have America talking about what the resistance is focusing on, not what the Republicans are. If the resistance had a strategy, they could manage to acquire as much attention with their narratives as the right does with their conspiracy theories and outright lies. Think about small children competing for attention from a parent, teacher, coach or otherwise. The silent children receive only a fraction of the attention that the louder and more talkative children do.

Narratives do not need to be long or complicated. They simply need to be constructed by those who understand the principles of narrative. A well constructed narrative communicates meaning based on the identity of the audience and is not as is commonly understood, a story. A narrative is built on multiple stories that somewhat act as the chapters of a book. The plot tells us what the narrative is.

Let’s look for a moment at the three recommended narratives noted previously.

1. The Republicans in charge of congress have ignored their oaths to “protect and defend the constitution from all enemies and domestic. They instead have given the Executive Branch emergency powers and supported the administration exclusively, while they regularly violate our constitution. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson have ensured that congress abdicated their role in our system of checks and balances. They are enablers of Project 2025, that is stripping the legislative and judicial branches of government of their constitutional powers and placing the preponderance of them into the Executive Branch. This allows the White House to pretty much do as it pleases, especially with Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts leading a SCOTUS right-wing super majority, that is bastardizing our constitution.

   

   Trump’s immunity decision, the allowance of racial profiling for Immigration operations, Citizens United and their persistent decisions that reward the billionaire class are just the tip of the iceberg in what I personally consider, professional or criminal malfeasance.

   1. Trump Is Violating the Constitution | American Civil Liberties Union

   2. Mazars and Vance, and President Trump’s Ongoing Assault on our Structural Constitution | ACS

   3. Breaking the Law | Brennan Center for Justice

   4. Trump’s 'Emergencies' Are Pretexts for Undermining the Constitution | Lawfare

   It was the Republicans in Congress that approved the Big Ugly Bill, that is doing so much harm to our nation and its working citizens while outrageously giving away our treasury to oligarchs and billionaires. Dramatic and senseless DOGE cuts, have dramatically denied or restricted us access to the very government services that our tax dollars pay for. Yes, the Republican Party has done all of this and so much more that imperils all of us. Again, we need to make enough noise about this version of the GOP if we want media to listen.

   With the constant government shutdowns, including the longest in our history plus the ongoing one regarding ICE and CBP, it is blatantly obvious that the Trump-era GOP cannot govern or more like, won’t govern. They control all three branches of government but still cannot manage to accomplish the basic requirements of governing. To make matters worse, we are knee-deep in the midterm election cycle and not one thing to relieve Americans from the affordability issues caused by the GOP-led congress, is being addressed. Besides groceries, housing costs and fuel, their willful destruction of the healthcare system, is a primary concern.

   Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

   "Health costs continue to top the public’s list of affordability worries, even as concerns about gas prices have risen in recent weeks. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of adults are worried about being able to afford health care costs, on par with the share who now worry about gas and transportation costs (64%) and outranking other economic concerns. In January 2026, prior to the start of the U.S. conflict with Iran, gasoline and transportation costs ranked at the bottom of household financial worries. Now, gas prices share the top spot with health care costs as the biggest financial worry adults face for themselves and their families."
   
   - KFF Health Tracking Poll: Health Care Costs and the Midterms
   - Audrey Kearney, Mardet Mulugeta, Alex Montero, Isabelle Valdes, Lunna        Lopes, and Ashley Kirzinger
   - April 29th, 2026

   

2. The issue of the Epstein files and how nearly all Republicans in congress are protecting them, is stomach churning to any and all decent human beings. It is an issue that is no longer a matter of guilty or not guilty but an issue of whether or not Republican voters will hold their noses and continue to support those guilty of some of the most heinous of crimes and most often against children. We must pin this issue to the lapels of every elected Republican until they are willing to support impeachment for Trump, Todd Blanche, Kash Patel and several other administration officials.

3. If we don’t hold them accountable, we will have failed as Americans and as moral human beings. If the Republicans in the administration won’t do their part, let the world know loudly, the names of every single one of them. Go straight to their social media accounts and do as I have been doing for a while now, ask them “why they are protecting pedophiles.” When they give a press conference, ask the question again. Hang signs in front of their home offices with the question painted in loud colors on signs. I believe that every single Republican congressional district should have billboards with these legislator’s faces and names alongside this question.

   

3. As if things weren’t bad enough between the US and our allies, the Iran War has made the situation far worse with Trump just yesterday announcing that he was withdrawing 5,000 of our troops from Germany, with far more being removed from Europe in the near future. From a national security perspective, we are now mostly alone in a very dangerous world. As that I’ve written to date, an eight-part series on the war in the past three weeks or so, I will not belabor the rest of the points here in this already, too long essay. The bottom-line though is that at the moment, we are not winning. We are also far away from achieving anything remotely close to what we already had with the Obama administration’s, Iran Deal.

3. For those looking for the full details of the war from the eight-part series, the links are below.

   Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

   Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

   Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

   Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

   Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

   Part VI, the Iran War: Never say it cannot get worse.

   Part 7: The Iran War, Trump surrenders - by Paul Cobaugh

   The Iran War, Part VIII: The liars, cowards and thieves, looting our household budgets.

Today’s summary is relatively short and sweet. The overall point is that we must pointedly and perpetually do the work to make Americans see the truth, that the Republican Party cannot or will not govern and they are failing at doing anything at all to relieve the affordability issues straining American households. In order to do this, we must now pull out all of the stops to make ourselves heard across the spectrum of US media, and do it before the Republicans. We must also sustain our voices in media and never again return to the reactive only posture of the DNC.

What this comes down to is that we need all of those apathetic voters who tend to sit out elections. We will need every possible vote in order to overcome the variety of election “rigging” planned by the current administration. The other salient point is that if we put in the work to turn voters out and for the resistance, there is the potential to recover the House of Representatives and the Senate. If we can achieve this, we should have relative safety from the administration for Trump’s last two years in office. If we don’t, American democracy may not survive that long. There is no time to sit back and relax, no matter how positive the polls are.

At the end of the day, a Republican-led congress and the party itself should in my opinion, be our COG. Without control of congress, the administration will struggle to achieve any more debilitating structural devastation to our constitutional republic. Taking back both houses of congress is our insurance policy for safety and ultimately, our trump-card (pun intended) against any more significant harm from this administration. It’s also our ticket to getting some of the administration’s worst of the worst held accountable. Such success may not be the end of this corrupt and treasonous administration but, it sure will be the beginning of the end of this most un-American and dangerous administration.

After this is all over, it will still take a decade or more to put this phase of our history behind us. The sooner we get at it, the sooner we’ll be living an American life again.

Onward,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is a bit different. In many ways this collection of thoughts about the subjugation of the American people, some imposed and some self-imposed, is a stream of consciousness writing exercise. Just me ruminating over thoughts I have about the deep mess our nation is in. It’s the story of our nation’s descent into a hollow shell of its former self, or rather the hostile takeover of our republic by some of the world’s wealthiest men. The America I grew up in, could hardly be more different than what we witness today. It’s as if most Americans are dressed up in patriotic costumes for Halloween, but are either too apathetic or too addicted to the brainwashing babble of politicians, marketers and major corporations, to actually defend American Democracy.

Most Americans have never read the constitution and even fewer understand it. It’s really not that difficult as that our founders wanted a document that nearly every citizen could understand. In fact, both Jefferson and Madison clearly believed that the law should be clear enough so that everyone could understand it. Today’s SCOTUS, clearly doesn’t agree as that the right wing justices are perfectly willing to turn a basic document into a pretzel, in order to justify the court’s contortionist-like opinions that support Trump, Republicans and their oligarchs. Today’s conspiracy theory-laden right, dines exclusively on their fairly tales, while concurrently humiliating themselves in front of family, friends and communities, by repeating this most absurd nonsense. Some on the left are just as avoidant of reality, especially when it comes to Gaza and the Palestinian issue.

In the meantime, the reality of what America is and should be, has been largely lost or at least mothballed. Commercialism, the worship of celebrity and the willingness to believe in absurdities, has replaced the very basic civics and history classes we all experienced in elementary school through high school. There have been accomplices to this tragedy, almost exclusively from what at one time in US history, would have been called the “robber barons.” Today’s robber barons, exist in numbers increasing faster than the precipitous pace that our middle class is diminishing. Jobs once thought secure, are now often replaced by offshoring, automation and AI. Old-school tactics for saving money, planning for a future, educating our children and the all-important American dream of home ownership, are no longer relevant and in most cases, counterproductive.

"But the middle class has fallen behind on two key counts. The growth in income for the middle class since 1970 has not kept pace with the growth in income for the upper-income tier. And the share of total U.S. household income held by the middle class has plunged."

- The State of the American Middle Class
- Pew Research Center
- May 31st, 2024

None of this was the America I was born into. As a “baby boomer” I grew up in an America still swelling with pride in our democracy. Our successes in being a primary player in ridding the world of the fascism of the late 1930s and 1940s were a particular point of pride. We were united at home and with our allies, especially NATO throughout the Cold War, and reveled at the opportunity for real world peace after winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union. At the end of WW II, the GI bill, global primacy and burgeoning manufacturing held nearly unbridled optimism for most of America. Jobs were plentiful and nationally we represented the future due to our advances in science and technology. The world saw us as we preferred to see ourselves, ambitious, energetic and a global leader for democracy. America was a robust beacon to a world desperately seeking opportunity, democracy and safety.

"In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by the history of the past. 

– Alexis de Tocqueville
- Democracy in America 
- 1835 (Reeves translation)

We have forgotten who we were, not only in my lifetime but dating back to the earliest days of our “great experiment.” Behind those decades of pride and energetic forays into a brighter future, our Achilles Heel of apathy, materialism and tolerance of robber barrons, began to rear its ugly head again. We’ve been through the eras of oligarchs before, eventually reining them in before they could do as much damage as we currently see, with only one exception. The Confederacy, built on the planks of White Christian Nationalism, slavery, poor white labor and oligarchy, went to war with the union to save their un-American way of life. Today, we must again fight this war against a movement with their roots in the same ideology as the Confederacy, that I call, The four horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and Political Violence.

In roughly 1978 or 1979, along came Newt Gingrich and his “scorched earth” political style, headlined by the Moral Majority and later the Tea Party movement. Gingrich and the evolution from Moral Majority to Tea Party and now the MAGA movements, live by the mantra that says simply, “if the left wanted anything, it had to be rejected, no matter how much bipartisan support there was.” In 1980 Ronald Reagan came to office and thus began the GOP’s decades-long assault on the working classes, primarily via tax cuts to the wealthy. His “trickle down economics” were more of a slogan than a real economic strategy and which ultimately increased the deficit while expanding income inequality between the wealthy and everyone else. Legislation benefitting the elite wealth class then became all that the GOP was interested in, regardless of who got hurt. This hasn’t changed since.

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

- Farewell Address 
- President George Washington
- Saturday, September 17, 1796

Like our only independent president, George Washington, I despise the concept of political parties. Still, we are now saddled with them and so have only a couple of choices on our ballots. After SCOTUS’ Citizens United’s decision, dark money began to outright buy our elections. Now, that same dark money has also purchased and locked away in some deep dark prison cell, what it means to be an American. All they care about is winning so that they can continue to profit wildly from the influence they have purchased on the floor of Congress. Without the understanding of what it means to be an American based on our founding values, we are ceasing to represent the identity of the world’s most successful constitutional republic.

Nations like people, endure based on their identity and their ability to retain it. Ukraine’s success against Russia is a good example. Throughout our history, our identity could best be described as, hard-working, innovative and fiercely independent. We respect the “up by your bootstraps” success, underdogs, those who embody our founding principles, defiance against outside aggressors and even domestic ones, such as the Civil War Confederacy. With the exception of the GOP siding with Russia during and since the 2016 election, America has always rallied and unified to defend our nation and our values. Pre-WW II, our nation was like today, severely under strain by the Great Depression and similarly divided along racial, religious and class divides etc.

Still, after December 7th, 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, nearly all of this divisiveness evaporated, almost overnight. Men committed suicide if they were deemed “4-F” or ineligible for military service. Americans of all backgrounds contributed to the war effort from “liberty gardens” to “Rosie the Riveter” women working in manufacturing. Women, minorities and all ethnicities clamored to support the war effort against the fascist Axis powers aligned against the free world. The US military desegregated and women served openly in the military. Our strength came from that specific American identity that thumbed our noses at bullies and aggressors in defense of liberty. That resilient unity, was America. What has changed in the Trump era? This is the question of the day and has a wide variety of answers. Let’s take a look at a couple of the most significant.

First of all, post WW II with GI Bill money for college home mortgages etc., far more Americans began to participate in the opportunity that most working Americans had little access to pre-war. Homes became more comfortable and with an avalanche of modern conveniences like central heating, washing machines and more. Sears and J.C. Penny stores dominated urban and rural America, enticing consumers with an ever-expanding bevy of new comfort items, styles and entertainment. Along with the entertainment, especially with the advent of television in more and more homes, access to news, entertainment and sports came along with advertising via mass media where before, only radio and newspapers thrived. Marketing in particular became far more cunning and often dishonest.

Who can forget the commercials bragging about the benefits of smoking? It didn’t just stop with cigarettes either. Marketers have always looked for any advantage to acquire market shares via any method or tactic, ethical or not. Today, just like in journalism, marketing ethics are more lip-service than not. In marketing, just like in my profession, influence operations, there are systems, tactics and strategies that are in no way ethical unless wielded against an avowed enemy. Americans are not enemies of marketers or journalists, but in our current nation we are treated as such. We are there only to be used for political or financial gain.

Politicians and political parties, wield all manner of modern tactics and resources to “sell” Americans on their ideology. Algorithms, trolls, bots, overtly dishonest campaign ads, silencing dissent etc. are just a handful of modern tactics. Even Google Search has taken a significant downturn that denies us the quality search results we could use to validate information. By using these unethical mass-media tactics and resources, they can make people believe in absurdities and in fact, brainwash their audiences, as we can see from the bizarre conspiracy theories that define today’s Republican party. The danger of those believing in absurdities was best expressed by a brilliant and prolific 18th century French Enlightenment writer and philosopher, named Voltaire.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

Secondly, someone must pay for all of this dishonest marketing of politicians and products. Oligarchs or the 1% pay the bills of those who deceive us, and at our expense. A staggering amount of this elite wealth class are the ones with the strategies to acquire not only more wealth, but power. As we now see in every part of our lives, we are paying more for less and this includes politics. For example, today’s Republicans consistently vote against their own self interests. They vote to lose their healthcare, pay more for groceries, pay higher taxes and all the while we are concurrently losing more of our constitutional rights. Bought and paid for politicians do the dirty work of these oligarchs by writing laws favorable to the wealthy over the essential needs of the rest of us.

Finally, there are only six or seven multi-national media conglomerates that control most of what we see, read, watch and hear. They ensure that we are distracted by reality shows, Tik-Tok and other influencers offering little or nothing of value to the human fabric of our nation. The pundits that tell us what to think, are a dime-a-dozen and are merely parroting the scripts they’ve been handed by CEOs, politicians, political parties and so on. They create the narratives that have replaced facts, for a very large portion of American audiences.

Many of the narratives of the right have to do with false patriotism. Historical revisionism is alive and well in today’s GOP, where they’ve basically replaced American history and our values, with a version best described as God, Guns and Trump. I cringe when I read or hear a Republican politician that makes some outrageous claims about our constitution or history, just to make their followers believe they are the true patriots. And yet, where is the vigorous rebuttal from constituents? We all watched the January 6th armed insurrection on our TV screens, phones and laptops, yet tens of millions of Republican voters will tell you with a straight face that there was no armed insurrection. This is the type of “absurdity” that should frighten every one of us.

Patriotism is a team sport and in today’s America, also a contact sport. We must be willing to stand toe-to-toe with the thuggery under contract to the MAGA GOP. In order to do this, we must reacquaint ourselves with who we are as Americans. As earlier noted, our identity as Americans hasn’t disappeared, but is lying dormant. Reacquainting ourselves with our historical and traditional identity, will once again rekindle the flame of liberty demonstrated on battlefields around the world, in the halls of congress and in our communities.

In order to find ourselves, we must see, read and hear news through a filter of truth and wisdom. We have known for nearly 250 years who we are and until the Trump era, it didn’t take much for us to remember and act on our patriotic identity. Those instincts are our most powerful weapons against tyranny, but first we must all get off of our couches and participate on a level not seen since WW II.

"I need not repeat the figures. The facts speak for themselves.... These men could not have been armed and equipped as they are had it not been for the miracle of production here at home. The production which has flowed from the country to all the battlefronts of the world has been due to the efforts of American business, American labor, and American farmers, working together as a patriotic team."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt 
- Navy Day speech
- October 27, 1944

Americans at home and abroad pitched in to support the war effort, all the way from children to all adults. Rationing, salvaging metals to be recycled into military products, the liberty gardens and countless other government sponsored programs were worked by those at home, who could contribute their own unique skills and talents to the war effort. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the phrase, “don’t you know there’s a war on” in the streets, kitchens or businesses all across the country. This is the type of universal commitment that beckons to us now, as we persist in fighting our war against our own fascist regime. We’ve done this before and we know how. Waking up our historical American identity, is the surest way to manifest the same spirit of liberty that saw us through years of war, and on the heels of the Great Depression.

"The war effort on the "Home Front" required sacrifices and cooperation. "Don't you know there's a war on?" was a common expression. Rationing became part of everyday life. Americans learned to conserve vital resources. They lived with price controls, dealt with shortages of everything from nylons to housing, and volunteered for jobs ranging from air raid warden to Red Cross worker."

- Take A Closer Look: America Goes to War
- The National WW II Museum

I won’t belabor the concept that we must all work together to recover our liberty. We all know, but have somehow let these memories to lapse. We must be our own leaders because it is apparent that we are the cavalry. We still have little to nothing from the DNC. We have millions of Americans looking for leadership but must accept that at the moment, none is on the horizon. If our preferred choices cannot or will not lead, we must pick up the baton and lead as well. We can do this together or individually. The blueprint for success is written across the pages of our history books and lives in the memories of those who survived WW II. They are our advisors.

The goals of our movement are simple, and that is the narrative of our fight. We simply wish to restore our republic to a functioning state, where we are all equal before the law, don’t sell our souls to oligarchs and demand fair laws from our elected representatives. We must know our national values and act on them. Extend your hands to those still too timid to leave their sofas. We need them. Take at least one or two actions a day in support of the resistance, even if it is only to call an elected representative, write a comment on some administration official’s social media post or block-walk for candidates and causes. Like in our past, we must sacrifice a little time ,in order to restore and protect our republic. We’ve got this if we all just do a little. If WW II or our War of Independence is any guide, most will do far more than a little bit. It’s just who we are as Americans.

I’ll leave you now with one thought; I’m proud to stand next to every one of you dedicated to this cause. America is our home and we intend to keep it as our founders intended… free.

Onward

Paul

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